I 


MARGARET    FULLER 

From    the    Century    Magazine,    April,    1893 


MARGARET  FULLER 

A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  BIOGRAPHT 


BY 

KATHARINE  ANTHONY 

AUTHOR   OF    "MOTHERS    WHO    MUST    EARN,"    "FEMINISM 
IN  GERMANY   AND    SCANDINAVIA" 


NEW   YORK 

HARCOURT,  BRACE  AND  COMPANY 
1921 


COPYRIGHT,    1920,   BY 
HARCOURT,   BRACE  AND  HOWE,   INC. 


a* 

PREFACE  |  Cj  £  O 

THE  life  of  Margaret  Fuller  has  been  the  happy  hunt-  fM  ft  / 
ing-ground  of  imaginative  biographers.  The  Bac 
chante,  the  Sybil,  the  Pythoness, — these  were  the  usual 
clarifying  terms  in  which  she  was  explained  to  the 
generations  which  succeeded  her.  After  this  Margaret 
myth  had  been  current  for  more  than  thirty  years,  Mr. 
Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson  sought  to  inject  some 
realism  into  the  picture.  In  his  excellent  biography, 
he  politely  denounced  the  romantic  legend  and  repre 
sented  Margaret  as  the  woman  of  action  which  she 
really  was.  But  he  was  chiefly  concerned  with  the 
literary  pioneer,  and  Margaret  was,  after  all,  more  in 
teresting  as  a  personality  than  as  a  writer.  About  the 
same  time,  Mrs.  Julia  Ward  Howe  composed  another 
life,  emphasizing  Margaret's  pioneer  work  for  the 
emancipation  of  women  and  also  eliminating  the 
"  Pythian  disguise,"  the  "  viraginian  aspect,"  and  all 
the  rest  of  the  inflamed  rhetoric  which  had  contributed 
so  largely  to  Margaret's  previous  reputation.  But 
Mrs.  Howe  was  so  magnificently  impersonal,  that  she 
leaves  us  more  in  the  dark  than  ever  as  to  what  manner 
of  woman  this  really  was  who  was  so  startling  and 
upsetting  to  her  own  generation.  Finally,  Margaret's 
Love  Letters  were  published,  scrupulously  edited  and 

4i':'978 


iv  Preface 

pruned  by  one  knows  not  how  many  censors.  A 
realistic  interpretation  of  her  life  and  character  has  not 
only  not  been  attempted  but  has  rather  been  positively 
avoided.  A  mood  of  evasion  has  marked  almost  all 
that  has  been  written  about  her.  The  following  study 
tries  to  arrive  at  the  realities  of  Margaret's  personality 
and  career,  chiefly  by  means  of  modern  psychological 
analysis. 

My  purpose  has  been  to  apply  a  new  method  to  old 
matter.  I  have  not  tried  to  unearth  fresh  material 
or  discover  unpublished  evidence.  The  sources  from 
which  the  facts  are  drawn  are  well-known  volumes 
given  in  the  bibliography  at  the  end.  But  the  follow 
ing  pages  are  less  concerned  with  a  chronology  of 
facts  than  with  the  phases  of  a  complex  personality 
and  a  manifold  life.  It  is  an  attempt  to  analyze  the 
emotional  values  of  an  individual  existence,  the  motiva 
tion  of  a  career,  the  social  transformation  of  a 
woman's  energies. 

In  order  to  give  direct  representation,  Margaret's 
writings  are  liberally  quoted.  Her  books  are  now 
forgotten  and  neglected,  the  only  editions  in  existence 
being  so  out  of  date  that  few  libraries  are  old  enough 
to  possess  them.  Yet  she  wrote  much  good  criticism, 
good  feminism,  and  good  psychology,  which  deserve 
to  be  rescued  from  the  dusty  attic  and  classed  with 
some  of  our  newest  wisdom. 


Preface  v 

Many  circumstances  combine  to  lend  a  special  in 
terest  to  Margaret  Fuller  at  this  time.  Seventy  years 
ago,  she  stood  at  the  beginning  of  two  great  move 
ments  which  have  reached  their  culmination  in  our 
day.  She  saw  the  inception  of  the  woman  movement 
in  America  and  the  revolutionary  movement  in 
Europe.  Her  life,  with  all  its  inward  and  outward 
struggles,  was  peculiarly  identified  with  both.  Her 
ideals  have  recently  renewed  their  vitality  for  us.  .For 
instance,  now  that  suffrage  is  out  of  the  way,  there 
is  a  great  need  for  the  broader  kind  of  feminism  that 
Margaret  Fuller  represented.  And,  similarly,  her  re 
lation  to  the  European  crisis  of  1848  gives  her  also 
a  relation  to  the  second  chapter  of  those  revolutionary 
processes  through  which  we  are  living  today. 

In  short,  Margaret  was  a  modern  woman  who  died 
in  1850.  The  legend  she  left  cannot  be  truth.  It 
was  created  mainly  by  unemancipated  men;  Chivalry 
and  Puritanism  combined  to  distort  the  picture.  For 
this  reason,  her  life  demands  a  vindication  from  certain 
quarters  which  too  long  have  failed  her.  Feminisme 
oblige.  Her  story  needed  to  be  told  by  some  one  who 
could  sympathize  with  her  struggles  and  affirm  her 
ideals.  Therefore,  while  striving  for  realism  and  im 
partiality,  the  following  study  does  not  pretend  to 
avoid  the  warmth  of  the  advocate. 

K.  A. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB  PAGE 

I.    FAMILY  PATTERNS  ...>..  I   \ 

II.    A  PRECOCIOUS  CHILD     .       .       .       .      >  n 

III.  NARCISSA .       .  27 

IV.  MIRANDA >.  40 

V.    A  WOMAN'S  WOMAN 57 

VI.    THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST      .       ...  84  V 

VII.    THE  JOURNALIST 105 

VIII.    CONTACTS 125 

IX.    HER  DEBT  TO  NATURE  .....  148  /X 

X.    THE  REVOLUTIONIST       .....  175 

XL    1850   ..........  193 


MARGARET  FULLER 

CHAPTER  I 
FAMILY  PATTERNS 

MARGARET  FULLER'S  father  was  thirty-two  when  she 
was  born.  A  self-made  man,  he  had  been  compelled 
to  postpone  marriage  and  family  life  until  a  com 
paratively  advanced  age.  But  it  was  written  that  in 
the  springtime  of  his  thirty-first  year,  the  Puritan 
lawyer  and  politician  should  succumb  to  his  first  ro 
mance.  Less  than  a  year  later — on  May  23,  1810 — • 
he  became  the  father  of  a  daughter. 

It  was  almost  an  incidental  fact  that  the  young 
wife,  who  had  married  a  man  fully  ten  years  older  than 
herself,  became  a  mother  at  the  same  time,  for  she 
proved  to  be  the  merest  footnote  of  a  mother.  Her 
influence  appears  to  have  been  limited  to  the  physical 
acts  of  motherhood  and  to  have  terminated  with  her 
daughter's  very  brief  term  of  infancy.  The  house 
in  Cambridge  and  the  second-story  chamber  in  which 
she  was  brought  to  bed  of  Margaret  are  still  shown 
to  visitors;  and  one  can  almost  imagine  Timothy 
Fuller  in  the  pangs  of  a  couvade  in  the  adjoining 
chamber.  But  if  his  jealousy  of  the  maternal  adven- 


-:'/A.  ^Margaret  Fuller 


ture  did  not  carry  him  thus  far,  it  stepped  in  at  the 
earliest  possible  moment  that  nature  would  permit. 
He  took  the  child's  life  in  hand  with  a  thoroughness 
which  amounted  to  a  practical  kidnaping  from'  the 
mother,  and  taught  her  to  cleave  only  to  him.  To 
celebrate  his  daughter's  birth,  he  planted  two  elms  in 
front  of  his  house,  and  as  they  flourished  and  grew 
they  typified  the  strong  emotional  bond  which  grew 
up  between  father  and  daughter  in  spite  of  more  than 
thirty  intervening  years. 

Margaret  likened  this  relationship  to  that  between 
Prospero  and  Miranda.  In  her  Woman  in  the  Nine 
teenth  Century,  she  described  it  thus:  "  [Miranda's] 
father  was  a  man  who  cherished  no  sentimental 
reverence  for  Woman,  but  a  firm  belief  in  the  equality 
of  the  sexes.  She  was  his  eldest  child,  and  came  to 
him  at  an  age  when  he  needed  a  companion.  From 
the  time  she  could  speak  and  go  alone,  he  addressed 
her  not  as  a  plaything,  but  as  a  living  mind. 
Among  the  few  verses  he  ever  wrote  was  a  copy 
addressed  to  his  child,  when  the  first  locks  were  cut 
from  her  head.  .  .  .  He  respected  his  child,  how 
ever,  too  much  to  be  an  indulgent  parent.  .  .  . 
In  so  far  as  he  possessed  the  keys  to  the  wonders  of 
this  universe,  he  allowed  free  use  of  them  to  her,  and, 
by  the  incentive  of  a  high  expectation,  he  forbade 
.  .  .  that  she  should  let  the  privilege  lie  idle." 


Family  Patterns 


There  is  in  Mount  Auburn  a  solid,  four-square 
monument  which  sets  forth  the  sum  of  Timothy 
Fuller's  political  achievements.  It  states  that  he  grad 
uated  at  Harvard  University  in  1801;  was  a  member 
of  the  Massachusetts  Senate  from  1813  to  1816;  a 
representative  in  the  United  States  Congress  from 
1817  to  1825;  speaker  of  the  Massachusetts  House 
of  Representatives  in  1825;  and  a  member  of'  the 
Executive  Council  in  1828.  He  was,  in  fact,  a  man 
of  some  distinction,  and,  in  his  little  daughter's  eyes, 
every  inch  a  Roman  Senator.  According  to  his  tomb 
stone,  Mr.  Fuller  adjusted  successfully  to  the  society 
into  which  he  was  born.  He  had  a  caustic  tongue, 
liked  to  stand  with  the  opposition  in  politics,  and, 
notwithstanding  his  election  successes,  was  not  a 
"good  mixer."  It  was  true,  as  Margaret  said,  that 
he  needed  a  companion. 

Some  years  after  her  father's  death,  Margaret,  after 
spending  an  afternoon  at  Mount  Auburn,  went  home 
and  wrote  this  note  in  her  Journal :  "  Reasons  why 
there  are  no  good  monuments?  I  must  write  upon 
this  subject."  To  this  she  added  another  reflection, 
"  Persons  die  generally,  not  as  a  natural  thing,  but 
from  extraneous  causes."  But  she  was  not  thinking 
of  old  age  as  the  natural  cause  of  death. — "A  death 
from  love  would  be  perfectly  natural,"  she  concluded. 
From  girlhood  Margaret  betrayed  a  great  deal  of 


Margaret  Fuller 


this  kind  of  insight  which  nowadays  goes  by  the  name 
of  Freudian  psychology. 

The  Fullers  sprang  from  the  Puritan  ghetto  of 
Salem.  The  first  Fuller  was  a  blacksmith  who  ex 
perienced  a  passionate  conversion  under  the  preaching 
of  the  "  soul-ravishing  Mr.  Shepherd."  This  pious 
ancestor  was  a  contemporary  of  the  Salem  witches 
and  one  of  the  founders  of  the  church  in  which 
witch  "  investigations "  of  those  days  were  held. 
Fortunately,  none  of  the  female  Fullers  of  that  gener 
ation  were  witches.  Margaret  was  the  first  of  the 
clan  to  achieve  this  melancholy  distinction. 

Another  strongly  marked  figure  in  Margaret's  gal 
lery  of  ancestors  was  a  certain  Timothy  Fuller  of 
Salem,  called  "  Old  Tim,"  who  was  the  hero  of  a 
peculiar  legend.  Working  in  the  fields  one  day,  he 
grew  thirsty  and  called  at  a  house  for  a  drink.  The 
woman,  who  was  just  putting  her  baby  to  sleep,  replied, 
"  you  rock  the  cradle  while  I  draw  the  cider."  On  her 
return,  the  stranger  asked  her  jocularly  for  the  child 
in  the  cradle  and  the  woman  told  him  he  must  wait 
eighteen  years.  To  this  stipulation  the  suitor  agreed, 
and,  at  the  appointed  time,  returned  and  married  the 
eighteen-year-old  girl.  Whether  the  legend  is  true 
or  not,  it  suggests  a  parallel  to  what  actually  happened 
to  Margaret  Fuller  who  began  to  be  a  companion  to 
her  father  while  still  an  infant  in  the  cradle. 


Family  Patterns 


Margaret's  grandfather  was  a  clergyman  in  Prince 
ton,  Massachusetts,  when  the  Revolutionary  War  broke 
out.  Whether  he  was  pro-British  or  pacifist  does 
not  appear,  but  at  any  rate  he  preached  a  sermon  on 
the  text :  "  Let  not  him  that  girdeth  on  the  harness 
boast  himself  as  he  that  putteth  it  off," — and  was 
promptly  discharged  by  his  congregation,  which  con 
sisted  largely  of  minute-men.  He  sued  the  town  for 
his  salary,  with  the  result  that  he  was  doubly  dismissed 
and  had  moreover  to  pay  the  costs  of  the  legal  proceed 
ings.  In  the  end,  the  unfrocked  but  still  unbeaten 
clergyman  settled  on  a  farm  in  the  vicinity  and  got 
himself  elected  to  the  constitutional  convention.  His 
five  sons,  with  one  accord,  forsook  the  ministry  and 
took  to  the  law. 

Timothy  Fuller  and  his  four  brothers  put  themselves 
through  Harvard  College  in  spite  of  narrow  means 
and  harsh  obstacles.  They  were  the  kind  of  young 
men  of  whom  it  was  proudly  said  by  a  descendant 
that  they  "  grudged  the  hours  that  nature  demands  for 
sleep."  True  Puritans  as  they  were,  they  regarded 
nature  generally  with  a  most  begrudging  eye  and 
reveled  in  the  dark  worship  of  hardship  for  hardship's 
sake.  There  was  an  Uncle  Abraham  who  remained 
a  bachelor  all  his  days  and  who  presumed  to  teach 
Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson's  mother  how  to  darn 
better  than  she  had  ever  darned  before.  Higginson 


Margaret  Fuller 


says  this  shows  how  arrogant  and  self-assertive  Uncle 
Abraham  was, — this  being  a  trait  of  the  Fuller  clan 
which  Margaret  inherited.  But  it  shows  something 
else,  and  that  is  that  Uncle  Abraham  could  darn.  So 
could  Margaret's  father,  Congressman  Timothy 
Fuller;  for  he  not  only  instructed  his  daughter  in  the 
classics  but  he  guided  her  training  in  the  domestic 
arts  as  well.  Her  dress,  her  correspondence,  her 
parties — all  this  fell  under  the  paternal  supervision. 
Again  one  has  to  comment  that  such  efficiency  in  a 
Congressman  argues  a  feminine  disposition  rather  than 
the  reverse.  Margaret  must  have  imbibed  in  early 
childhood  the  idea  that  occupations  were  not  divinely 
ordained  for  each  sex.  If  father  and  Uncle  Abraham 
could  darn,  why  should  she  not  go  to  sea?  And  so 
it  came  about  that  Margaret,  having  been  brought  up 
by  hand  by  a  father  who  had  certain  so-called  feminine 
traits,  became  a  woman  who  had  certain  so-called 
masculine  traits.  Such  men  and  women  confound 
the  categories  and  are  usually  unpopular. 

Margaret's  father,  the  eldest  of  the  Fuller  brothers, 
was  a  non-conformist  in  religion  and  politics,  being 
a  Unitarian  and  a  Jeffersonian.  In  those  days,  this 
was  to  be  an  unbeliever  and  a  Jacobin.  While  still 
in  college,  he  began  his  career  of  non-conformity. 
As  a  poor  parson's  son,  obliged  to  work  his  way 
through  college,  he  took  part  in  a  students'  rebellion 


Family  Patterns 


organized  against  certain  hated  regulations.  For  this 
indiscretion  he  lost  his  chance  of  being  first-honor  man 
and  graduated  with  second  honors  instead.  It  was 
also  while  he  was  still  in  college  that  he  became  a 
disciple  of  Jefferson,  who — as  one  critic  said — 
"  wrote  such  stuff  about  the  will  of  the  majorities  as 
a  New  Englander  would  lose  his  rank  among  men  of 
sense  to  avow."  Nevertheless  Timothy  Fuller  must 
needs  avow  them  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that  all  the 
wealth  and  business  of  Boston  were  solidly  on  the 
other  side.  As  the  father  of  a  large  family  his  course 
was  imprudent  and  led  him  at  last  almost  into  bank 
ruptcy. 

But  Margaret  had  little  appreciation  of  the  com 
plexities  in  her  father's  character,  which  were  to  so 
great  an  extent  repeated  in  her  own.  She  thought 
her  father  was  a  good  business  man.  "  He  was  a  man 
largely  endowed  with  that  sagacious  energy,  which 
the  state  of  New  England  society,  for  the  last  half 
century,  has  been  so  well  fitted  to  develop.  ...  As 
5.  boy,  my  father  was  taught  to  think  only  of  preparing 
himself  for  Harvard  University,  and  when  there  of 
preparing  himself  for  the  profession  of  the  law.  .  .  . 
The  result  was  a  character,  in  its  social  aspect,  of 
quite  the  common  sort.  A  good  son  and  brother,  a 
kind  neighbor,  an  active  man  of  business  ...  he 
was  but  one  of  a  class,  which  surrounding  conditions 


8  Margaret  Fuller 

have  made  the  majority  among  us."  But  all  this 
was  only  one  side  of  the  eccentric  man,  who  enjoyed 
music  with  passionate  delight,  played  the  flute  with 
some  skill,  and  fell  in  love  at  first  sight  with  a  hand 
some  girl  who  was  worse  than  penniless,  for  she 
was  well-endowed  with  poor  relations.  This  last  was 
not  the  act  of  a  sagacious  man  of  business. 

"  In  the  more  delicate  and  individual  relations," 
wrote  Margaret,  "  he  never  approached  but  two  mor 
tals,  my  mother  and  myself."  A  man  of  few 
relationships,  he  naturally  inclined  towards  intensity 
in  those  which  he  did  form.  In  politics  his  name 
was  frequently  associated  with  that  of  John  Quincy 
Adams,  towards  whom  Fuller  displayed  an  unfaltering 
and  loyal  friendship.  He  worked  indefatigably  in 
Adams's  campaign  for  the  presidency  and  in  the  sum 
mer  of  1826  gave  a  great  party  for  his  chief  at  his 
home  in  Cambridge.  Such  a  party  had  not  been  given 
in  Cambridge  for  fifty  years,  and  what  a  strain  it 
must  have  been  on  the  frugal  household  of  the  Fullers ! 
Of  course  it  gave  the  family  the  proud  status  of  having 
entertained  the  President  and  helped  to  vindicate  the 
social  position  of  the  Timothy  Fullers  in  the  eyes  of 
the  Federalist  aristocracy  of  Boston.  But  it  was 
apparently  a  sentimental  party,  after  all, — an  outburst 
of  affection  on  the  part  of  the  over-reserved  Mr. 
Fuller.  At  any  rate,  it  netted  him  nothing  in  a  business 


Family  Patterns 


way,  for  it  was  not  so  long  after  this  that  his  law 
practice  entered  its  last  fatal  decline. 

Having  married  so  late,  the  poor  man  was  caught 
by  middle  age  with  a  large  family  of  young  children. 
When  he  was  fifty  the  family  baby  was  but  two  years 
old.  He  kept  up  the  struggle  for  five  years  longer, 
and  then  decided  to  abandon  Boston  and  retire  with 
his  large  family  to  a  farm — as  his  father  had  done 
before  him.  Margaret,  who  was  but  twenty-three, 
thought  his  retreat  was  ignoble.  She  "  secretly  won 
dered  how  a  mind  which  had,  for  thirty  years, 
been  so  widely  engaged  in  the  affairs  of  men,  could 
care  so  much  for  trees  and  crops."  Nevertheless,  she 
went  with  the  family  to  the  farm  and  was  more  of  a 
companion  to  her  father  than  ever.  He  varied 
his  occupation  as  a  farmer  with  writing  a  history  of 
the  United  States,  and  Margaret  shared  in  the  reading 
for  this.  But  she  hated  the  farm  and  there  was  now 
something  inimical  in  her  "  companionship."  The 
broken  man  lived  but  two  years  longer  and  then 
succumbed  to  the  Asiatic  cholera. 

Through  all  this,  Mrs.  Fuller  seems  to  have  been 
the  perfect  example  of  the  self-effacing  mother. 
She  had  nine  children  in  sixteen  years,  and  was 
commemorated  on  her  tombstone  as  "  a  true  woman." 
One  of  her  sons  said  of  her:  "Duty  was  her  daily 
food.  Self-sacrifice  was  as  natural  to  her  as  self- 


IO  Margaret  Fuller 

gratification  is  to  others ".  When  the  Fullers  had 
guests,  Mr.  Fuller  and  his  daughter  entertained 
them,  while  Mrs.  Fuller  merely  appeared  as  a  shy 
and  awkward  figure  in  the  background.  In  brief, 
Margaret  had  crowded  her  mother  out  of  her  right 
ful  position  in  the  family  with  the  most  complete 
success.  It  was  no  wonder  that  she  grew  up  so  bold, 
and,  as  she  herself  said,  "  at  nineteen  the  most  in 
tolerable  girl  that  ever  took  a  seat  in  a  drawing-room." 
If  Mrs.  Fuller  had  not  been  such  a  true  and  self- 
sacrificing  woman,  her  oldest  daughter  would  have 
had  better  manners.  But  she  seems  to  have  yielded 
her  place  to  her  daughter  without  a  protest,  consoling 
herself  with  reminiscences  of  her  prowess  as  a  school 
mistress  before  her  marriage.  She  brought  up  her 
younger  children  on  the  story  of  how  she  had  once 
soundly  feruled  a  big  boy  who  had  questioned  her 
authority.  But  there  is  no  indication  that  she  ever 
displayed  such  energy  and  courage  in  her  own  home. 
She  was  a  weak  submissive  woman,  like  the  mother 
of  Mary  Wollstonecraft.  Perhaps  there  was  a  com 
mon  reason  why  the  daughters  of  both  these  mothers 
have  come  down  in  history  as  aggressive  women. 


CHAPTER  II 
A  PRECOCIOUS  CHILD 

INTELLECTUALLY  and  emotionally,  Margaret  Fuller 
was  a  precocious  child.  She  had  a  hungry  intellect 
and  hungry  emotions.  When,  as  a  mature  woman, 
she  visited  Carlyle,  his  comment  on  her  personality 
was :  "  Such  a  predetermination  to  eat  this  big  Universe 
as  her  oyster  or  her  egg,  ...  I  have  not  before  seen 
in  any  human  soul."  Though  Margaret  was  then 
thirty-six,  her  soul  was  still  uncouth  with  hunger,  like 
a  voracious  birdling  in  a  nest,  all  wide-open  beak  and 
nothing  else.  -She  was  lacking  in  the  ingratiating 
marks  of  all  the  partial  satisfactions  which  should  have 
been  her  daily  bread  from  childhood  on.  It  was  her 
tragedy  that  things  came  to  her  either  too  soon  or 
too  late:  the  essence  of  her  fate  was  untimeliness. 

Like  her  father  and  her  grandfather,  Margaret 
Fuller  was  educated  at  home,  her  school  life  away 
from  home  being  practically  negligible.  She  must  have 
had  a  little  domestic  Harvard  of  her  own,  for  her 
father  had  been  a  second-honor  man  and  his  father 
before  him  had  been  a  second-honor  man,  so  that 
Margaret's  curriculum  doubtless  carried  out  the  best 

ii 


12  Margaret  Fuller 

Harvard  tradition.  "  My  father  was  a  man  of  busi 
ness,"  she  said,  "  even  in  literature." 

Probably  because  his  own  education  had  been  re 
tarded  by  lack  of  means,  Timothy  Fuller  was  resolved 
to  give  his  daughter  an  early  start.  At  the  age  of 
six,  she  was  taught  Latin  and  English  grammar,  and 
read  Latin  daily  from  this  time  on.  In  translating, 
she  was  required  to  proceed  "  without  breaks  or  hesi 
tation, — for  with  these  my  father  had  absolutely  no 
patience."  A  year  or  two  later,  she  read  Horace  and 
Ovid,  and  before  she  reached  her  teens,  she  had 
learned  to  read  French.  "  The  great  amount  of  study 
exacted  of  me  soon  ceased  to  be  a  burden,  and  reading 
became  a  habit  and  passion."  At  the  age  of  eight, 
she  read  Shakespeare,  Cervantes,  and  Moliere.  When 
she  was  twenty-five  Emerson  said  of  her  that  her 
reading  was  at  a  rate  like  Gibbon's. 

There  was  no  library  in  the  Cambridgeport  house, 
but  her  father  had  in  his  room  a  large  closet  filled  with 
books.  Here  Margaret  found  the  best  writers  of  the 
eighteenth  century, — the  English  novelists  and  the 
French  political  philosophers,  in  whose  writings  her 
father,  who  was  "  more  than  half  a  Jacobin,"  was  espe 
cially  well  read.  The  priggish  maiden  read  the  French 
Republicans,  but  she  did  not  like  "  Smollett,  Fielding, 
and  the  like,"  because  they  dealt  "  too  broadly  with 
the  coarse  actualities  of  life." 


A  Precocious  Child  13 

Much  has  been  made  of  Margaret's  precocious 
studies  as  the  cause  of  her  life-long  ill  health.  Mar 
garet  herself  believed  that  the  forcing  of  her  intellect 
in  tender  years  was  the  cause  of  her  physical  weakness 
and  suffering,  and  her  biographers  have  accepted  her 
theory  without  criticism.  Mrs.  Howe  thought  that 
Margaret  had  a  real  case  against  her  father ;  but,  as  a 
mother  herself,  she  is  reminded  that  there  are  "  dif 
ficulties  which  parents  encounter  in  the  training  of 
their  children,  and  especially  in  that  of  their  eldest- 
born,"  and  she  thought  Margaret  should  not  have 
criticized  her  well-intentioned  parent.  But  Mr.  Hig- 
ginson  pointed  out  that  there  was  nothing  peculiar 
about  Margaret's  education  for  that  period,  except  that 
it  was  given  to  a  girl.  She  was  overtasked  by  her 
father  merely  because  he  trained  her  like  a  boy.  If 
she  had  been  a  boy,  she  would  not  have  been  over 
tasked.  "  Cambridge  boys,  if  the  sons  of  college-bred 
men,  were  brought  up  in  much  the  same  way,"  says 
Higginson.  Henry  Hedge,  who  was  Margaret's  in 
timate  friend  and  fellow-student,  was  ready  for  college 
at  eleven,  and  had  read  as  much  Latin  as  she.  Mar 
garet  must  have  been  aware  of  young  Hedge's  attain 
ments  and  she  must  have  been  aware,  since  they  studied 
so  much  together,  that  her  powers  were  on  a  par  with 
his.  Still,  she  had  to  find  some  theory  for  the  miseries 
of  her  youth,  and  so  she  attributed  her  sufferings  to 


14  Margaret  Fuller 

over-study.  But  the  truth  was  that,  if  Margaret  had 
not  been  endowed  with  superior  intelligence,  all  her 
father's  efforts  could  not  have  stretched  her  mind  to 
the  span  of  such  performances  as  he  required  of  her. 
To  this  extent  no  violent  hand  was  laid  on  her  develop 
ment. 

But  the  by-products  of  Mr.  Fuller's  course  were 
unwholesome.  Margaret  had  to  recite  her  lessons  in 
the  evening  by  candlelight,  after  her  father's  office 
hours  were  over.  Thus  the  excitable  child  went  to 
evening  school  and  kept  grown-up  hours.  If  Mr. 
Fuller  was  interrupted,  her  bed-time  was  postponed 
to  make  up  for  it.  And  since  he  begrudged  the  hours 
that  nature  requires  for  sleep,  apparently  he  begrudged 
them  as  well  on  Margaret's  behalf.  But  it  is  doubtful 
whether  these  things  alone  would  have  shattered  her 
health.  Her  vulnerable  spot  was  her  emotional  pre 
cocity. 

All  her  affections  were  focused  on  her  father.  He 
not  only  usurped  the  mother's  place  in  addition  to  his 
own,  but  added  to  this  the  influence  of  the  school 
master.  In  this  triple  character,  he  ruled  his  daugh 
ter's  life  completely,  and  she  worshiped  a  trinity  of 
authorities  in  him.  Margaret's  adult  writings  are  full 
of  echoes  of  her  hectic,  unchildish  preoccupation  with 
this  attachment.  "When  I  recollect  how  deep  the 
anguish,  how  deeper  still  the  want,  with  which  I 


A  Precocious  Child 


walked  alone  in  hours  of  childish  passion  and  called 
for  a  Father,  after  saying  the  word  a  hundred  times, 
till  it  was  stifled  by  sobs,  how  great  seems  the  duty 
that  name  imposes."  One  would  think  that  even  a 
literary  biographer  would  realize  the  uncanny  eroticism 
of  this  reminiscence. 

With  characteristic  candor,  Margaret  traces  the 
emotional  history  of  her  childhood  in  a  fragment  of 
autobiography  written  at  the  age  of  thirty.  It  was 
based  on  an  earlier  history  written  at  sixteen  which  she 
destroyed.  Her  record,  brief  as  it  is,  contains  almost 
a  clinical  picture  of  the  future  hysteric. 

For  the  first  five  years  of  her  life,  Margaret  en 
joyed  the  position  of  an  only  child.  During  this  time 
a  baby  sister  made  her  appearance  but  she  soon  van 
ished  again.  "  My  earliest  recollection  is  of  a  death,'* 
Margaret  writes;  "the  death  of  a  sister,  two  years 
younger  than  myself."  She  does  not  recall  any  feel 
ings  of  tenderness  towards  this  baby  sister,  but  she 
thinks  that  "  probably  there  is  a  sense  of  childish  en 
dearments  such  as  belong  to  this  tie."  But  she  re 
members  vividly  the  funeral, — "  the  house  all  still  and 
dark, — the  people  in  their  black  clothes  and  dreary 
faces, — the  scent  of  the  newly-made  coffin, — my  being 
set  up  in  a  chair  and  detained  by  a  gentle  hand  to  hear 
the  clergyman, — the  carriages  slowly  going, — the  pro 
cession  slowly  doling  out  their  steps  to  the  grave." 


1 6  Margaret  Fuller 

The  reminiscence  then  proceeds  rather  more  briskly: 
"  My  father, — all  whose  feelings  were  now  concen 
tered  on  me, — instructed  me  himself." 

When  Margaret  was  five,  a  baby  brother  was  born. 
This  was  in  the  year  1815,  and  Mr.  Fuller  showed 
where  his  political  sympathies  lay  by  naming  his  in 
fant  son  "  Eugene."  He  delivered  a  Fourth  of  July 
oration  at  Watertown  in  his  most  caustic  manner. 
"  The  '  disinterested  and  magnanimous  Allies,'  the 
'  deliverers  of  the  world ',  seem  very  affectionate  to 
the  world  they  have  delivered.  Their  '  labor  of  love  ' 
is  only  begun.  One  takes  Poland  under  his  gracious 
protection;  another  is  pleased  to  take  Norway;  a  third, 
Italy ;  and  modest  England  resigns  to  each  his  favorite 
portion  of  prostrate  Europe,  and  only  claims,  as  a 
small  gratuity,  the  rest  of  the  world! "  In  this  strain, 
the  Honorable  Timothy  reviewed  the  events  of  1815, 
at  home  as  well  as  abroad  no  doubt,  and  his  five-year- 
old  daughter  received  a  lasting  imprint  from  the  pa 
ternal  view  of  things.  From  this  time  forth,  we  may 
always  know  where  to  find  her. 

In  the  picture  of  her  childhood,  Margaret  pays  great 
attention  to  her  dreams.  As  a  woman  of  thirty,  she 
still  recalls  the  child's  dreams  with  great  vividness. 
They  haunted  her  all  her  life  long,  and  she  believed 
that,  in  some  undefined  way,  they  were  the  cause  of 
her  unhappiness.  She  did  not  know,  however,  that 


A  Precocious  Child  17 

they  furnished  the  key  to  the  passionate  conflicts  from 
which  she  suffered.  "  These  dreams/'  she  says, 
writing  of  herself  in  the  third  person,  "  softened  her 
heart  too  much,  and  cast  a  deep  shadow  over  her 
young  days;  for  then,  and  later,  the  life  of  dreams, 
— probably  because  there  was  in  it  less  to  distract  the 
mind  from  its  own  earnestness, — has  often  seemed  to 
her  more  real,  and  been  remembered  with  more  inter 
est,  than  that  of  waking  hours." 

There  was  one  dream  which  came  to  her  repeatedly. 
"  Often  she  dreamed  of  following  to  the  grave  the 
body  of  her  mother,  as  she  had  done  that  of  her  sister, 
and  wake  to  find  the  pillow  drenched  in  tears."  In 
this  good  child's  heart,  as  in  all  good  children's  hearts, 
there  were  evil  wishes  which  she  had  to  keep  secret 
even  from  herself.  She  had  a  primeval  and  murderous 
wish  to  attend  the  funeral  of  her  beloved  mother.  But 
that  is  only  half  the  story.  The  tears  which  wet  her 
pillow  were  sincere,  for  the  child  also  loved  the  gentle 
mother  who  was  all  self-effacing  kindness.  It  was  in 
the  intensity  of  such  early  emotional  conflicts  that  the 
foundation  was  laid  for  Margaret's  neurotic  disposi 
tion.  The  middle-aged  Puritan  father,  who  wished  to 
renew  his  youth  by  spiritual  loot  from  the  next  genera 
tion,  was  himself  to  blame  for  much  of  her  suffering. 

After  her  evening  lessons,  Margaret  says  that  she 
went  to  bed  with  "nerves  unnaturally  stimulated," 


1 8  Margaret  Fuller 

which  led  to  her  being  a  "  victim  of  spectral  illusions, 
nightmare,  and  somnambulism  "  and  later  of  "  con 
tinual  headache,  weakness,  and  nervous  affections  of 
all  kinds."  She  describes  some  of  the  dreams  which 
followed  such  evenings. 

"  As  soon  as  the  light  was  taken  away,"  she  says, 
still  using  the  third  person,  "  she  seemed  to  see  colossal 
faces  advancing  towards  her,  the  eyes  dilating,  and 
each  feature  swelling  loathsomely  as  they  came,  till  at 
last,  when  they  were  about  to  close  upon  her,  she 
started  up  with  a  shriek  which  drove  them  away,  but 
only  to  return  when  she  lay  down  again/'  She  de 
scribes  also  a  dream  of  horses:  "When  at  last  she 
went  to  sleep,  it  was  to  dream  of  horses  trampling  over 
her,  and  to  awaken  once  more  in  fright."  Yet  another 
dream  was,  "  as  she  had  just  read  in  her  Virgil,  of 
being  among  trees  that  dripped  with  blood,  where  she 
walked  and  walked  and  could  not  get  out,  while  the 
blood  became  a  pool  and  splashed  over  her  feet,  and 
rose  higher  and  higher,  till  soon  she  dreamed  it  would 
reach  her  lips.  No  wonder  the  child  arose  and  walked 
in  her  sleep,  moaning,  all  over  the  house,  till  once,  when 
they  heard  her,  and  came  and  waked  her,  and  she  told 
them  what  she  had  dreamed,  her  father  sharply  bid  her 
'  leave  off  thinking  of  such  nonsense,  or  she  would  be 
crazy,' — never  knowing  that  he  was  himself  the  cause 
of  all  these  horrors  of  the  night." 


A  Precocious  Child  19 

Margaret  was  altogether  right  in  saying  that  her 
father  was  to  blame  for  these  horrors,  though  it  was 
in  a  sense  which  she  did  not  appreciate.  It  is  only 
surprising  that  she  came  as  near  the  truth  as  she  did. 
Nowadays,  the  veriest  tyro  in  psychoanalysis  could 
have  told  Mr.  Fuller  what  it  was  that  was  making 
such  inroads  on  his  daughter's  nervous  system. 

These  dreams  show  that  the  child  went  bowed  and 
aching  under  the  terrible  burden  of  her  precocious 
sexuality  and  painful  repressions.  The  vision  of  the 
trampling  horses  is  an  erotic  phantasy  common  among 
hysterical  maidens.  Similarly  the  dilating  eyes  are 
well-known  among  the  anxiety  dreams  of  childhood 
and  usually  have  a  sexual  significance.  To  this  dream 
about  eyes  can  probably  be  traced  Margaret's  eccentric 
habit  of  opening  and  closing  her  eyelids  alternately, 
a  trick  described  with  gusto  by  all  her  biographers 
and  said  to  have  been  due  to  her  near-sightedness. 
Channing,  who  shared  Margaret's  belief  in  "  magnet 
ism,"  thought  that  her  "  highly-magnetized  condition  " 
had  something  to  do  with  it.  But  Emerson  regarded 
it  as  an  affectation  which  he  very  much  disliked. 
According  to  him,  it  contributed  to  her  "plainness/' 

When  Margaret  was  sixteen,  the  house  was  full 
of  "little  Fullers,"  as  she  called  them.  Their  fre 
quent  arrival  upon  the  scene  must  have  stimulated  a 
great  deal  the  girl's  natural  curiosity  concerning  the 


2O  Margaret  Fuller 

origin  of  life.  "  I  remembered  how,  a  little  child," 
she  says,  "  I  had  stopped  myself  one  day  on  the  stairs, 
and  asked,  how  came  I  here  ?  How  is  it  that  I  seem 
to  be  this  Margaret  Fuller?  What  does  it  mean? 
What  shall  I  do  about  it?"  In  this  sort  of  childish 
inquiry  was  laid  the  foundation  of  her  passion  for 
knowledge;  she  had  a  consuming  wish  to  know  and 
understand  the  world.  Ignorance  was  to  her,  she  said, 
"  a  pain." 

A  child  like  Margaret  Fuller,  of  course,  has  day 
dreams  as  well  as  night  dreams.  Far  back  in  the 
"  dewy  dawn  of  memory,"  Margaret  had  thought  of 
herself  as  a  "  changeling  "  and  pitied  herself  in  her 
"  adopted  home."  Her  real  parents  could  not  be  this 
commonplace  New  England  couple  whose  thoughts 
never  strayed  from  the  jobs  of  the  day;  she  was  a 
European  Princess  confided  to  their  care,  and  so  forth. 

She  prayed  earnestly  for  a  sign, — "  that  it  would 
lighten  in  some  particular  region  of  the  heavens,  or 
that  I  might  find  a  bunch  of  grapes  in  the  path  when 
I  went  forth  in  the  morning.  But  no  sign  was 
given,  and  I  was  left  a  waif  stranded  upon  the  shores 
of  modern  life!  "  Children  with  intense  imaginations 
commonly  have  these  superstitious  fancies  about  their 
magnificent  origin  and  their  power  over  impossibilities 
by  wishing.  In  Margaret  the  delusional  life  was 
over-developed,  but  there  are  none  so  normal  that  they 


A  Precocious  Child  21 

can  afford  to  smile  at  her  childish  absurdities  from  too 
lofty  a  height.  Yet  Emerson,  who  wished  to  prove 
that  Margaret  had  a  "  mountainous  me,"  seriously 
produced  the  fantasies  of  omnipotence  from  her  early 
childhood  as  evidence.  In  order  to  show  that  "  from 
the  beginning  of  her  life  she  idealized  herself  as  a 
sovereign,"  he  refers  to  a  passage  in  her  diary  which 
shows  nothing  of  the  kind,  though  it  does  show  clearly 
what  an  unhealthy  emotional  relationship  existed  be 
tween  the  Puritan  child  and  her  father.  "  I  remem 
bered  our  walking  in  the  garden  avenue,  between  the 
tall  white  lilies  and  Ellen's  apple-tree;  she  was  a 
lovely  child  then,  and  happy,  but  my  heart  ached,  and 
I  lived  in  just  the  way  I  do  now.  Father  said, 
seeing  me  at  a  distance,  '  Incedo  regina,'  etc.  Poor 
Juno!  Father  admired  me,  and,  though  he  caused 
me  so  much  suffering,  had  a  true  sense  at  times  of 
what  is  tragic  for  me."  The  chief  peculiarity  of 
Margaret  Fuller  is  that  she  remembered  her  childish 
day-dreams  and  set  them  down  so  accurately.  Her 
reminiscences  are  a  distinct  contribution  to  the  psychol 
ogy  of  normal  childhood  and  it  was  only  in  the  over- 
accentuation  of  her  emotions  that  they  assumed  a 
neurotic  coloring. 

Margaret  was  clever  enough  to  analyze  the  chief 
injury  of  precocious  learning  in  her  own  case.  Out 
of  her  own  experience,  she  laid  down  a  principle  which 


22  Margaret  Fuller 

modern  educators  are  coming  more  and  more  to  recog 
nize.  Her  conclusion  was  that  children  should  not 
learn  to  read  too  early,  because  "they  should  not 
through  books  antedate  their  actual  experiences,  but 
should  take  them  gradually,  as  sympathy  and  interpre 
tation  are  needed."  As  a  result  of  her  premature 
studies,  her  world  was  a  world  of  demi-gods  and 
Caesars  and  the  denizens  of  Cambridgeport  did  not 
shine  by  comparison.  "  How  poor  the  scene  around, 
how  tame  one's  own  existence,  how  meager  and  faint 
every  power,  with  these  beings  in  my  mind!  Often 
I  must  cast  them  quite  aside  in  order  to  grow  in  my 
small  way,  and  not  sink  into  despair."  Books  should 
be  to  children,  she  thought,  the  aftermath,  and  not 
the  vestibule,  of  experience.  And  they  should  be  the 
same  thing  to  an  adult.  "A  moment  of  action  in 
one's  self,"  she  said,  "  is  worth  an  age  of  apprehension 
through  others ;  not  that  our  deeds  are  better,  but  that 
they  produce  a  renewal  of  our  being."  Here  again 
Margaret  has  laid  down  a  principle  of  modern 
psychology.  There  are  few  better  statements  of  the 
innate  fertility  of  life  and  action  as  compared  with 
the  sterile  pleasures  of  the  day-dreamer's  lot. 

Margaret's  neurotic  childhood  has  always  been 
a  stumbling  stone  for  her  literary  biographers.  They 
were  fascinated  by  it — indeed  it  seems  for  some  of 
them  to  have  been  her  chief  attraction — but  none  of 


A  Precocious  Child  23 

them  has  known  what  to  make  of  it.  Even  Emerson, 
who  detested  that  aspect  of  her  nature,  could  not  pos 
sibly  pass  it  by.  He  shared  the  opinion  of  the  Boston 
conclave  that  her  hysterical  sufferings  were  in  some 
inexplicable  way  associated  with  her  talents.  Mrs. 
Howe  speaks  of  the  child's  hysteria  as  if  it  were  some 
thing  afflicting  but  extraneous,  like  measles  or  scarlet 
fever.  Kind  Mr.  Higginson,  very  much  alive  to  the 
mischief  which  had  been  done  to  Margaret's  reputa 
tion  by  dwelling  on  all  this  "  seeress  "  and  "  arcana  " 
business,  strove  to  do  justice  to  the  commonplace  and 
practical  side  of  Margaret's  life  and  character  which 
has  been  so  misrepresented.  A  gentleman  of  the  old 
school,  he  thought  there  was  something  not  altogether 
"  nice  "  about  hysteria,  and  so  he  left  it  out.  McPhail, 
who  put  her  life  into  his  Essays  on  Puritanism 
where  she  most  certainly  belonged,  had  the  good  sense 
to  compassionate  suffering  when  he  saw  it  and  not  to 
alternate  between  admiration  and  dislike.  It  was  he 
who  said  also  with  sensible  finality,  that  the  child's 
character  had  puzzled  and  misled  her  biographers  and 
would  certainly  continue  to  do  so  "  till  the  essential 
nature  of  hysteria  is  disclosed." 

So  far  as  Margaret's  case  is  concerned,  Sigmund 
Freud's  theory  of  hysteria  is  a  perfect  fit.  As  one 
of  the  Freudians  has  said,  "  It  may  be  more  comfort 
able  to  believe  that  hysteria  is  due  to  a  toxic  process 


24  Margaret  Fuller 

than  that  it  is  due  to  psycho-sexual  conflicts,"  but  we 
shall  have  to  make  ourselves  uncomfortable  for  the 
moment  in  the  interests  of  the  truth  about  Margaret 
Fuller's  childhood.  But  how  can  an  innocent  child 
be  the  victim  of  a  psycho-sexual  conflict,  some  one 
protests.  "  The  passions  are  not  un frequently  felt  in 
their  full  shock,  if  not  in  their  intensity,  at  eight  or 
nine  years  old."  This  is  not  a  statement  of  those 
profoundly  irritating  Freudians  but  of  Margaret  Fuller 
herself,  who  wrote  it  in  a  book  review  in  1846.  She 
frequently  wrote  the  most  surprising  statements  about 
the  love-impulse  which  showed  that  she  had  more  than 
an  inkling  of  the  truth  about  its  nature  and  its  history. 
Margaret's  whole  emotional  life  in  childhood  cen 
tered  around  the  father  who  likened  her  to  Juno  and 
wrote  verses  to  a  lock  of  her  hair.  In  spite  of  the 
strictness  of  his  Puritan  regime,  she  knew  herself  to 
be  the  center  of  his  attentions  and  his  hopes.  Some 
one  suggested  that  Mr.  Fuller  educated  his  daughter 
to  satisfy  a  social  ambition.  But  to  teach  a  girl  Latin 
and  send  her  into  libraries  in  those  days  was  the  surest 
way  of  all  to  wreck  her  social  prospects  and  dedicate 
her  to  spinsterhood.  Mr.  Fuller  must  have  known 
that  himself.  Margaret  said  that  her  father  educated 
her  at  home  instead  of  sending  her  to  school  "  merely 
to  please  himself."  JEvidently  people  thought  that 
Mr.  Fuller's  motive  for  taking  so  much  pains  with  his 


A  Precocious  Child  25 

daughter  needed  an  explanation.  "  He  took  pride  in 
her  precocious  abilities,  and  enjoyed  her  companion 
ship  in  his  favorite  studies,"  said  Higginson;  "that 
tells  the  whole  story."  It  does,  almost, — but  not  quite. 
The  tie  between  father  and  daughter  is  never  without 
some  tinge  of  sex-attraction,  and  in  the  over-stressing 
of  that  tie  lies  the  possibility  of  much  neurotic  suffer 
ing.  In  Margaret's  case,  without  doubt,  this  early 
and  natural  affection  was  forced  by  the  circumstances 
of  her  home-life  into  a  premature  strength  and  in 
tensity.  It  became  an  amour  which  the  sensitive  con 
sciousness  was  forced  to  drive  down  into  the  deepest 
and  most  secret  recesses  of  its  abandoned  memories. 
Such  impressions  normally  fade  away  with  children 
and  leave  only  their  traces  upon  after-life;  but  with 
Margaret  it  was  not  so.  Her  childish  love  was  the 
mainspring  of  her  whole  career 

It  stamped  her  with  an  unforgettable  longing.  As 
a  woman  of  more  than  thirty,  she  walked  along  the 
seashore  one  day  and  saw  a  fisherman  playing  with  his 
little  girl.  It  struck  her  as  a  romantic  idyll  and  she 
described  it  in  these  terms.  "As  I  approached,  I  be 
held  a  young  fisherman  with  his  little  girl.  He  had 
nestled  her  into  a  hollow  of  the  rock,  and  was  standing 
before  her,  with  his  arms  around  her,  and  looking  up 
in  her  face.  Never  was  anything  so  pretty.  I  stood 
and  stared,  country  fashion ;  and  presently  he  scram- 


26  Margaret  Fuller 

bled  up  to  the  very  top  with  her  in  his  arms.  She 
screamed  a  little  as  they  went,  but  when  they  were 
fairly  upon  the  crest  of  the  rock,  she  chuckled  and 
stretched  out  her  tiny  hand  over  his  neck,  to  go  still 
further.  Yet,  when  she  found  he  did  not  wish  it,  she 
leaned  against  his  shoulder,  and  he  sat  feeling  himself 
in  the  child  like  that  exquisite  madonna,  and  looking 
out  over  the  great  sea." 

All  this  was  merely  a  tender  reminiscence  out  of 
Margaret's  own  childhood.  Her  rather  bizarre  pic 
ture  of  the  man  feeling  himself  in  the  child  like 
a  madonna  was  a  fair  portrait  of  the  reserved,  rather 
feminine,  and  affectionate  father  who  did  so  much 
to  make  her  what  she  was. 


CHAPTER  III 
NARCISSA 

AT  the  age  of  thirteen,  Margaret  fell  violently  in  love. 
She  fell  in  love  "  at  first  sight  "  (her  life-long  pattern 
for  this  process)  with  a  stranger,  whom  she  saw  at 
church.  The  stranger  was  an  English  lady,  who 
played  the  harp  and  read  Sir  Walter  Scott.  It  was 
a  sentimental  and  passing  attachment,  not  a  profound 
and  life-long  influence  like  Mary  Wollstonecraft's  for 
Fanny  Blood.  Margaret  replaced  the  adored  one 
from  time  to  time  by  other  matrons  equally  adored, 
but  the  original  impression  was  never  effaced. 

All  her  pent-up  feelings  seized  upon  the  strange  lady 
as  a  drowning  man  clutches  at  a  straw.  "  It  was  my 
first  real  interest  in  my  kind,  and  it  engrossed  me 
wholly.  I  had  seen  her, — I  should  see  her, — and  my 
mind  lay  steeped  in  the  visions  that  flowed  from  this 
source.  My  task-work  I  went  through  with,  as  I  have 
done  on  similar  occasions  all  my  life,  aided  by  pride 
that  could  not  bear  to  fail,  or  be  questioned.  Could 
I  cease  from  doing  the  work  of  the  day,  and  hear 
the  reason  sneeringly  given, — '  Her  head  is  so  com- 

27 


28  Margaret  Fuller 

pletely  taken  up  with that  she  can  do  nothing  ? ' 

Impossible  ...  I  can  tell  little  else  of  this  time, — 
indeed,  I  remember  little,  except  the  state  of  feeling 
in  which  I  lived." 

She  was  unable  to  cope  with  her  excessive  grief 
when  the  stranger  went  away.  "  Those  who  are  really 
children  could  not  know  such  love,  or  feel  such  sor 
row,"  she  comments.  She  fell  into  a  complete  hysteri 
cal  innervation, — M  knew  not  how  to  exert  myself, 
but  lay  bound  hand  and  foot," — and  soon  took  refuge 
in  outright  sickness.  The  robust  and  energetic  girl 
was  genuinely  ill. 

For  the  first  time,  her  father  began  to  suspect  that 
there  was  something  wrong.  He  suddenly  discovered 
that  she  needed  to  be  with  girls  of  her  own  age.  But 
already  the  Cambridge  girls  were  hostile  towards  the 
eccentric  Margaret,  and  so  she  was  sent  away  to  board 
ing  school.  The  school  selected  was  that  of  the  Misses 
Prescott,  in  Groton,  Massachusetts.  Here  Margaret 
spent  her  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  years,  and  her  ex 
periences  there  are  told  in  the  story  of  a  fictitious 
"  Marianna,"  who  "  irritated  the  girls,  as  all  eccentric 
ity  does  the  world  in  general,  more  than  vice  or 
malignity."  Groton  was,  of  course,  no  kinder  than 
Cambridge, — the  only  difference  being  that  the  girl 
was  forced  into  a  hand-to-hand  struggle  with  public 
opinion.  She  soon  learned  which  was  the  stronger. 


Narcissa  29 


Her  father  had  delivered  her  up  to  a  most  unequal 
combat. 

The  climax  came  as  the  result  of  a  series  of  theatri 
cals  in  which  Margaret's  abilities  and  talents  naturally 
brought  her  to  the  fore.  The  principal  parts  fell  to 
her  as  a  matter  of  course  and  for  a  time  she  reigned 
triumphant.  But  the  plays  came  to  an  end  and  the 
gray  commonplace  regime  again  prevailed.  But  Mar 
garet,  after  the  plays  were  over,  kept  on  painting  her 
cheeks.  The  girls  jeered  at  her,  and  Margaret  de 
fended  herself  at  first,  saying  she  thought  it  made  her 
look  pretty.  Then  she  became  stubborn  and  silent — 
but  kept  up  the  habit.  In  her  story,  Margaret  gives 
no  reason  for  Marianna's  behavior,  and  probably 
she  knew  none;  but  the  famous  peach-bloom  on 
her  mother's  cheeks,  so  celebrated  in  family  annals, 
was  doubtless  at  the  bottom  of  the  girl's  absurdity. 
She  could  not  stop  for  the  simple  reason  that  she  did 
not  know  why  she  did  it. 

Margaret's  schoolmates  did  not  understand  her. 
She  infuriated  them,  as  only  the  eccentric  can  infuriate 
the  blessed  normal  people.  They  decided  to  punish  her 
and  enlisted  the  teachers  in  their  conspiracy.  One 
day  she  came  down  to  dinner  to  find  all  the  girls  deeply 
rouged  with  round,  glaring  spots  on  their  cheeks.  As 
her  eyes  traveled  around  the  table,  she  saw  that  every 
one  had  joined  the  trick  against  her.  Even  the  teach- 


30  Margaret  Fuller 

ers  smiled  and  the  servants  tittered.  The  world 
despised  her  and  triumphed  in  her  disgrace !  She  gave 
no  sign  during  the  meal,  but  afterwards  she  went  to 
her  room  and  fell  upon  the  floor  in  convulsions.  In 
stantly,  everybody  was  kind  and  attentive,  and  the 
episode  passed  over. 

Margaret  left  off  painting  her  cheeks,  but  the  mem 
ory  of  how  not  one  person  had  taken  her  part  rankled 
within  her.  Now  that  she  was  beaten  and  outwardly 
subdued,  her  schoolmates  became  more  friendly  and 
gave  her  their  confidences.  In  a  spirit  of  revenge 
the  girl  saw  her  chance  to  create  dissension  among 
them  and  used  it.  She  began  her  deliberate  mischief- 
making  with  prudence  but  grew  so  bold  with  her  suc 
cess  that  she  ran  into  a  second  fiasco.  She  was  called 
upon  by  the  principal  to  answer  charges  to  be  preferred 
against  her.  Marianna  stood  up  and  leaned  against 
the  chimney-piece,  while  eight  of  the  older  girls  came 
forward  and  charged  her  with  falsehood  and  calumny. 
The  outcome  was  more  convulsions  and  another  illness. 
Her  feeling  of  revenge  had  given  place  to  a  feeling 
of  remorse,  and  the  poor  distracted  girl  became  more 
hysterical  than  ever  in  the  herd-atmosphere  of  the 
Misses  Prescott's  school. 

Margaret  was  fifteen  when  she  returned  from  board 
ing  school  and  sixteen  when  her  father  gave  the 
famous  party  for  John  Quincy  Adams.  She  wore  a 


Narcissa  31 


pink  silk  dress  on  that  occasion  and  presented  the 
appearance  of  a  buxom  young  woman  of  eighteen. 
From  this  time  forth,  she  was  "  out."  She  was  a 
marriageable  young  woman  and  she  now  went  into 
society.  Higginson  says  she  "  danced  through  col 
lege  "  with  the  class  of  1829.  But  not  all  of  them 
would  dance  with  her;  they  found  her  too  dashing, 
too  aggressive,  and  too  talkative.  Aside  from  one 
"  disappointment,"  no  love  affairs  developed.  It 
began  to  appear  that  she  was  destined  for  spinsterhood. 
The  natural  conclusion  in  the  observer's  mind,  and 
doubtless  in  Margaret's  own,  was  that  the  young  men 
of  her  own  generation  had  passed  her  by.  When 
maids  do  not  marry,  of  course,  it  is  because  they  are 
"  plain."  Margaret  "  made  up  her  mind  to  be  bright 
and  ugly."  The  theory  of  sex-attraction  was  very 
simple  in  those  days — beauty  in  women  and  bravery  in 
men  made  it  all  so  simple. 

Margaret's  passions  found  some  outlet  in  that  par 
ticular  form  of  self-love  which  is  known  as  ambition. 
She  was  madly  ambitious.  "  I  feel  the  power  of  in 
dustry  growing  every  day,  and,  besides  the  all-power 
ful  motive  of  ambition,  and  a  new  stimulus  lately 
given  through  a  friend,  I  have  learned  to  believe  that 
nothing,  no!  not  perfection,  is  unattainable.  I  am 
determined  on  distinction,  which  formerly  I  thought 
to  win  at  an  easy  rate;  but  now  I  see  that  long  years 


32  Margaret  Fuller 

of  labor  must  be  given  to  secure  even  the  '  succes  de 
societe  ' — which,  however,  shall  never  content  me.  I 
see  multitudes  of  examples  of  persons  of  genius, 
utterly  deficient  in  grace  and  the  power  of  pleasurable 
excitement.  I  wish  to  combine  both.  I  know  the 
obstacles  in  my  way.  I  am  wanting  in  that  intuitive 
tact  and  polish,  which  nature  has  bestowed  upon  some, 
but  which  I  must  acquire.  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
my  powers  of  intellect,  though  sufficient,  I  suppose, 
are  not  well  disciplined.  Yet  all  such  hindrances  may 
be  overcome  by  an  ardent  spirit.  If  I  fail,  my  conso 
lation  shall  be  found  in  active  employment."  The 
writer  of  these  lines  was  just  fifteen.  It  is  already 
easy  to  foresee  that  she  would  not  deserve  to  be  called 
"a  true  woman  "  on  her  tombstone. 

In  order  to  produce  that  glorious  Margaret  of  to- 
.  morrow  to  whom  the  Margaret  of  today  was  as  the  dull 
caterpillar  is  to  the  gorgeous  butterfly,  the  girl  toiled 
indefatigably.  She  wrote  to  her  teacher :  "  I  rise  a 
little  before  five,  walk  an  hour,  and  then  practice  on 
the  piano,  till  seven,  when  we  have  breakfast.  Next 
I  read  French — Sismondi's  Literature  of  the  South  of 
Europe, — till  eight,  then  two  or  three  lectures  in 
Brown's  Philosophy.  About  half -past  nhie  I  go  to 
Mr.  Perkin's  school  and  study  Greek  till  twelve,  when, 
the  school  being  dismissed,  I  recite,  go  home,  and  prac 
tice  again  till  dinner,  at  two.  Sometimes,  if  the  con- 


Narcissa  33 


versation  is  very  agreeable,  I  lounge  for  half  an  hour 
over  the  dessert,  though  rarely  so  lavish  of  time. 
Then,  when  I  can,  I  read  two  hours  in  Italian,  but 
I  am  often  interrupted.  At  six,  I  walk,  or  take  a  drive. 
Before  going  to  bed,  I  play  or  sing  for  half  an  hour 
or  so,  to  make  all  sleepy,  and,  about  eleven,  retire  to 
write  a  little  while  in  my  journal,  exercises  on  what 
I  have  read,  or  a  series  of  characteristics  which  I  am 
filling  up  according  to  advice.  Thus,  you  see,  I  am 
learning  Greek,  and  making  acquaintance  with  meta 
physics,  and  French  and  Italian  literature." 

Margaret  was  going  to  be  sixteen  next  week,  and 
she  had  a  great  decision  to  make.  "  Now  tell  me,"  she 
wrote  to  her  teacher,  "  had  you  rather  be  the  brilliant 
de  Stael  or  the  useful  Edgeworth?"  It  was  a  mere 
rhetorical  question,  for  the  brilliant  de  Stael  was 
an  easy  winner, — the  daughter  of  Necker  who  had 
published  at  the  age  of  fifteen  a  remarkable  defense 
of  her  father's  political  conduct  and  whose  ruling  pas 
sion  through  life  had  been  her  filial  devotion.  De 
Stael  was  plain;  she  was  a  brilliant  conversationalist, 
a  distinguished  author,  and  an  able  politician.  Yes, 
a  de  Stael  would  do  as  an  incentive,  but  one  must  work 
prodigiously.  Margaret  attacked  her  studies,  as  she 
said,  with  a  "  gladiatorial  disposition." 

She  liked  a  companion  in  her  studies,  but  there  were 
few  who  could  stand  her  pace.  In  Lydia  Maria 


34  Margaret  Fuller 

Francis,  a  fellow-disciple  of  the  brilliant  de  Stael,  she 
found  a  friend  and  the  two  seventeen-year-old  girls 
read  together  and  conversed  loftily  on  metaphysics  and 
politics.  At  nineteen,  she  attached  to  herself  James 
Freeman  Clarke  as  a  friend  to  whom  she  could  speak 
of  her  studies.  They  rode  together  on  horseback  from 
Cambridge  to  Newton  and  discussed  all  day  long  so 
cialism,  friendship,  and  the  power  of  circumstances. 
When  Carlyle  made  German  literature  the  fashion, 
they  fell  to  and  learned  German  together,  and  within 
three  months,  according  to  the  young  man's  account, 
Margaret  was  reading  with  ease  all  the  masterpieces 
which  Carlyle  had  reviewed  and  many  others  besides. 
Probably  Carlyle  himself,  in  his  remote  Craigen- 
puttock,  had  learned  the  language  no  faster  than  did 
this  new  disciple  in  her  narrow  New  England  corner. 
With  Frederick  Henry  Hedge,  another  platonic  friend, 
she  embarked  upon  ambitious  schemes  of  translations 
from  the  German,  which  led  to  some  excellent  literary 
work  from  both.  To  William  Henry  Channing,  Mar 
garet  confided  "  her  secret  hope  of  what  Woman 
might  be  and  do,  as  an  author,  in  our  Republic."  She 
sketched  a  portrait  which  Channing  recognized  as  her 
own  and,  he  adds,  "we  were  strangers  no  more." 
They  were  united  in  the  free-masonry  of  the  ambitious. 
Though  Margaret  could  read  Latin  and  German  and 
compare  ambitions  with  these  young  men,  she  could 


Narcissa  35 


not  make  love  to  them.  But  it  was  a  necessity  of  her 
nature  to  make  love  to  somebody.  She  solved  the 
dilemma  in  the  usual  way.  "She  was  one  of  those 
maidens/'  says  Higginson,  "  who  form  passionate 
attachments  to  older  women."  He  describes  how  she 
paid  court  to  his  mother  and  other  staid  matrons  of 
Cambridge.  One  of  her  idols,  a  certain  Mrs.  Farrar, 
who  was  the  author  of  a  Manual  for  Young  Ladies, 
took  her  in  hand  and  polished  up  her  manners,  which, 
according  to  Margaret's  own  account,  were  much  in 
need  of  an  expert's  touch.  She  wooed  young  women 
also.  There  was  the  beautiful  Anna  Barker  whom  she 
adored  but  who  filled  her  with  such  despairing  envy 
that  Margaret  struggled  with  curl-papers  night  after 
night  when  French  and  metaphysics  had  had  their 
due.  What  seemed  so  hard  for  Margaret  seemed  so 
easy  for  Anna.  The  young  men  paid  her  court  and 
in  the  proper  season,  she  married  one  of  them.  But 
probably  Anna  had  not  been  elected  in  her  cradle  to 
be  the  companion  of  her  father. 

Margaret  was  accused  of  sentimentalism  and  ro 
mantic  exaggeration  in  her  friendships.  She  belonged 
to  an  age  which  reveled  in  Rousseau,  Bettina  Bren- 
tano,  and  de  Stael,  and  the  grafting  of  foreign  ro 
manticism  on  the  native  Puritan  stock  sometimes  pro 
duced  outlandish  results.  But  for  all  that,  Margaret 
was  a  sincere  student  of  the  romantic  impulse  and 


36  Margaret  Fuller 

her  observations  were  accurate  so  far  as  they  went. 
She  was  one  of  those  who  stood  as  sign-posts  along 
the  road  which  was  to  lead  in  time  to  a  scientific  view 
of  the  nature  of  love.  "  It  is  so  true  that  a  woman 
may  be  in  love  with  a  woman,  and  a  man  with  a 
man.  It  is  pleasant  to  be  sure  of  it,  because  it  is  un 
doubtedly  the  same  love  that  we  shall  feel  when  we 
are  angels,  when  we  ascend  to  the  only  fit  place  for 
the  Mignons,  where  '  sie  f  ragen  nicht  nach  Mann  und 
Weib '.  It  is  regulated  by  the  same  law  as  that  of 
love  between  persons  of  different  sexes,  only  it  is 
purely  intellectual  and  spiritual,  unprofaned  by  any 
mixture  of  lower  instincts,  undisturbed  by  any  need 
of  consulting  temporal  interests;  its  law  is  the  desire 
of  the  spirit  to  realize  a  whole,  which  makes  it  seek 
in  another  being  that  which  it  finds  not  in  itself.  Thus 
the  beautiful  seek  the  strong,  the  mute  seek  the  elo 
quent;  the  butterfly  settles  on  the  dark  flower.  Why 
did  Socrates  love  Alcibiades?  Why  did  Kaiser  so  love 
Schneider?  How  natural  is  the  love  of  Wallenstein 
for  Max,  that  of  Madame  de  Stael  for  de  Recamier, 

mine  for  !     I  loved  for  a  time  with 

as  much  passion  as  I  was  then  strong  enough  to  feel. 
Her  face  was  always  gleaming  before  me;  her  voice 
was  echoing  in  my  ear.  All  poetic  thoughts  clustered 
round  the  dear  image.  .  .  .  She  loved  me,  for  I  well 
remember  her  suffering  when  she  first  could  feel  my 


Narcissa  37 


faults,  and  knew  one  part  of  the  exquisite  veil  rent 
away — how  she  wished  to  stay  apart  and  weep  the 
whole  day."  It  is  worth  noticing  that  Margaret  here 
hit  upon  what  is  said  by  the  modern  Freudian  to  be 
one  of  the  chief  ear-marks  of  this  form  of  love,  and 
that  is  a  greater  mutual  sensitiveness  to  faults  than 
exists  in  the  more  mature  form  of  love  between  per 
sons  of  opposite  sexes. 

Through  these  experiences  of  hers,  Margaret  was 
led  to  make  a  translation  of  the  Bettina-Gimderode 
letters  soon  after  their  publication  in  Leipzig  in  1840. 
The  Canoness  Giinderode  is  perhaps  less  famous  than 
her  masculine  counterpart,  the  melancholy  Werther, 
but  she  suffered  from  the  same  kind  of  Weltschmerz 
and  threw  herself  into  the  river  Rhine.  The  cor 
respondence  between  her  and  Bettina  Brentano  is  full 
of  ecstatic  poetry  of  which  Margaret  was  able,  largely 
through  her  sympathy,  to  make  an  excellent  English 
rendering.  She  met  Gunderode  at  a  turning-point  in 
her  life  and  for  a  year  or  so  followed  her  as  a  model. 
She  turneduher  back  upon  the  world  and  sought  for 
consolation  in  a  life  of  mysticism. 

Despite  her  strong  instinct  for  action  and  her  ex 
traordinary  energy,  she  seemed  to  languish  at  home 
without  an  aim  in  life.  The  family  fortunes  were 
declining  and  yet  she  made  no  effort  to  find  an  occu 
pation  for  herself.  In  those  years  there  were  few 


38  Margaret  Fuller 

occupations  open  to  women,  and  yet  it  seems  as  if 
Margaret  with  her  unusual  energies  might  have  found 
something  to  do  even  then.  She  longed  to  travel,  then 
why  not  strike  out  for  Virginia  to  be  a  governess 
on  a  plantation?  But  she  stuck  at  home  like  any 
spiritless  spinster  of  her  time.  She  longed  for  love 
and  marriage,  and  yet  she  took  no  steps  to  satisfy  her 
longing.  Of  course  she  was  a  perfect  lady,  and  a 
perfect  lady  did  not  go  husband-hunting.  Yet  she  was 
far  from  shrinking  in  her  other  relationships.  When 
she  had  marked  a  person  for  her  friend,  says  Emerson, 
the  one  so  marked  could  not  escape.  "  Persons  were 
her  game,  specially  if  marked  by  fortune,  or  character, 
or  success — to  such  was  she  sent.  .  .  .  Indeed  they 
fell  in  her  way,  when  the  access  might  have  seemed 
difficult,  by  wonderful  casualties."  If  she  was  such 
a  successful  adventuress  as  all  this,  why  did  she  not 
acquire  a  husband  by  the  same  method?  It  was  just 
there,  apparently,  that  her  instinct  for  possession  failed 
her  completely. 

She  sat  in  a  prison  of  her  own  making.  "  All  hopes 
of  traveling  I  have  dismissed,"  she  wrote  in  her 
Journal.  "  All  youthful  hopes,  of  every  kind,  I  have 
pushed,  from  my  thoughts.  I  will  not,  if  I  can  help 
it,  lose  an  hour  in  castle-building  and  repining — too 
much  of  that  already.  I  have  now  a  pursuit  of  im 
mediate  importance:  to  the  German  language  and  lit- 


Narcissa  39 


erature  I  will  give  my  undivided  attention.  I  have 
made  rapid  progress  for  one  quite  unassisted.  I  have 
always  hitherto  been  too  constantly  distracted  by 
childish  feelings  to  acquire  anything  properly,  but  have 
snatched  a  little  here  and  there  to  feed  my  restless 
fancy  therewith.  Please  God  now  to  keep  my  mind 
composed,  that  I  may  store  it  with  all  that  may  be 
conducive  to  the  best  good  of  others.  Oh,  keep  me 
steady  in  an  honorable  ambition;  favored  by  this  calm,- 
this  obscurity  of  life,  I  might  learn  everything,  did  not 
feeling  lavish  away  my  strength." 

Soon  after  this,  and  quite  suddenly,  came  her  fa 
ther's  decision  to  retire  upon  a  farm.  Margaret  was 
appalled  by  the  prospect,  yet  it  never  occurred  to  her 
to  find  a  way  of  remaining  in  Boston. 


CHAPTER  IV 
MIRANDA 

THE  Fuller  farm  was  only  forty  miles  from  Boston, 
but  there  was  no  railway  in  those  days  and  country 
life  represented  a  real  exile  to  Margaret.  Miranda 
greeted  her  desert  isle  with  a  flood  of  bitter  tears. 
Nevertheless  she  unpacked  her  trunks,  and  settled  in 
for  life:  there  was  now  no  other  prospect  visible. 

She  was  only  doing  what  custom  required  of  un 
married  daughters  in  those  days.  One  by  one  the  boys 
would  grow  up  and  leave,  but  she  would  always  stay 
on  in  the  Groton  farmhouse.  In  Boston  she  had  al 
ready  a  "circle"  and  several  Platonic  friendships. 
She  had  been  reading  German  with  Henry  Hedge,  but 
now  she  read  the  letters  of  Thomas  Jefferson  with  her 
father.  "  I  rejoice,  if  only  because  my  father  and  I 
can  have  so  much  in  common  on  this  topic,"  she  wrote 
to  Hedge ;  "  all  my  other  pursuits  have  led  me  away 
from  him;  here  he  has  much  information  and  ripe 
judgment."  Together  they  delved  into  Latin  again, 
and  Margaret  wrote  a  long  "  defense  of  Brutus " 
which  was  published  in  a  Boston  newspaper.  It  was 
replied  to  by  some  learned  "  big-wig  "  of  Salem,  who 

40 


Miranda  41; 


would  have  been  greatly  humiliated  no  doubt  could  he 
have  known  that  his  opponent  in  this  duel  of  Latin 
quotations  was  a  young  woman  of  twenty-four.  Mar 
garet's  father  was  immensely  proud  of  her. 

He  gave  into  her  hands  the  education  of  the  younger 
children.  There  were  younger  brothers  to  be  prepared 
for  college,  and  to  this  end  Margaret  kept  school  five 
days  in  the  week  and  her  school  day  was  from  five 
to  eight  hours  long.  Incidentally  she  renewed  her 
reading  of  Virgil  and  reflected  a  good  deal  on  his 
masculine  women  and  his  anti-religious  ideas  of  heaven 
and  virtue.  She  watched  her  pupils  as  they  tried  to 
reconcile  Virgil  with  the  Sunday  morning  sermon  and 
recalled  her  own  struggles.  "  I  really  find  it  diffi 
cult,"  she  wrote  to  a  friend,  "  to  keep  their  morale 
steady,  and  am  inclined  to  think  many  of  my  skeptical 
sufferings  are  traceable  to  this  source."  To  another 
friend  she  wrote,  "  I  will  tell  you  how  I  pass  my  time 
without  society  or  exercise.  Even  till  two  o'clock, 
sometimes  later,  I  pour  ideas  into  the  heads  of  the 
little  Fullers ;  much  runs  out,  but  the  few  drops  which 
remain  mightily  gladden  the  sight  of  my  father."  Her 
labors  were  lightened  also  by  the  promise  of  a  Eu 
ropean  tour.  Her  father  had  promised  her  this  as  a 
reward  for  her  school-keeping. 

At  the  same  time,  Margaret  was  in  no  way  exempt 
from  the  household  cares  of  the  grown-up  daughter. 


f 
42  Margaret  Fuller 

She  sewed  and  swept  and  nursed  the  sick.  Her  mother 
fell  ill;  her  invalid  grandmother  came  to  spend  the 
winter;  one  of  the  children  had  a  serious  accident  and 
a  long  convalescence;  and  the  baby  of  the  family  fell 
sick  and  died.  Once  when  William  Channing  took 
Margaret  to  task  for  her  arrogance  she  replied,  "  Re 
member  that  only  through  aspirations,  which  some 
times  make  me  what  is  called  unreasonable,  have  I 
been  enabled  to  vanquish  unpropitious  circumstances 
and  save  my  soul  alive." 

The  family  atmosphere  at  Groton  was  darkened  by 
new  currents  of  hostile  feeling.  Margaret's  brothers 
were  nearing  maturity  and  the  old  strife  between 
father  and  son  broke  out  in  the  household.  Margaret 
says  that  "  collisions  with  his  elder  sons,  which  would 
not  have  ended  there,"  embittered  the  last  days  of  her 
father.  Having  spoiled  his  daughter,  he  now  fought 
with  his  sons.  Eugene,  the  eldest,  went  to  Virginia 
as  a  tutor  on  a  plantation  and  ultimately  made  his  way 
to  New  Orleans  and  a  journalist's  career.  The  second 
son  followed,  and  only  the  little  boys  remained.  The 
patriarch  was  left  practically  alone  with  his  women 
folk. 

But  there  was  now  a  conflict  between  himself  and 
his  daughter.  She  would  not  be  reconciled  to  the 
farm.  She  would  not  even  look  at  it;  rather  would 
she  go  without  exercise  than  survey  the  crops  and 


Miranda  43 


fields  and  her  father's  improvements  on  the  place.  He 
wished  to  build  her  a  rustic  seat,  where  she  might  go 
and  read  alone,  but  she  always  put  him  off  when  it 
came  to  selecting  the  spot.  In  this  way,  the  petty  but 
poignant  battle  went  on  between  them. 

Margaret  sustained  the  emotional  conflict  for  two 
years  and  then  fell  desperately  ill.  Her  life  was 
despaired  of  by  the  family  and  she  herself  believed 
that  she  was  near  death.  Her  poor  mother  tended  her 
for  nine  days  and  nights  without  intermission.  At 
last  her  father  came  into  the  sick-room  and  said, 
"  My  dear,  I  have  been  thinking  of  you  in  the  night, 
and  I  cannot  remember  you  have  any  faults.  You 
have  defects,  of  course,  as  all  mortals  have,  but  I  do 
not  know  that  you  have  a  single  fault."  As  her  father 
had  always  acted  on  the  belief  that  praise  was  hurtful 
to  children,  this  declaration  was  a  momentous  event. 
It  shattered  the  habit  of  a  lifetime,  and  Margaret 
could  feel  that  victory  was  hers.  She  began  to  recover. 

Soon  after  this,  her  father  fell  ill  and  died  very 
suddenly  of  Asiatic  cholera.  His  daughter,  not  his 
wife,  closed  his  eyes  in  death. 

Margaret  was  filled  with  remorse.  "  My  father's 
image  follows  me  constantly.  Whenever  I  am  in 
my  room,  he  seems  to  open  the  door,  and  to  look 
on  me  with  a  complacent  smile."  But  she  was  now 
the  head  of  the  family  in  earnest  and  prepared  to 


44  Margaret  Fuller 

imitate  the  self-sacrificing  parent  whose  mantle  she 
had  inherited.  "  I  have  often  had  reason  to  regret 
being  of  the  softer  sex,"  she  said,  "  and  never  more 
than  now.  If  I  were  an  oldest  son,  I  could  be 
guardian  to  my  brothers  and  sister,  administer  the 
estate,  and  really  become  the  head  of  the  family."  But 
her  father's  business  affairs  had  to  be  taken  care  of 
by  Uncle  Abraham,  and  so  the  power  was  divided. 
"  Prospero  gave  Miranda  a  scepter,  not  his  wand,"  was 
the  way  Margaret  described  the  situation. 

The  European  trip  was  off.  There  was  not  enough 
money,  and  Margaret's  small  portion  would  not  be 
available  for  some  time  to  come.  In  the  meantime, 
Harriet  Martineau  was  about  to  return  to  England 
with  Mrs.  Farrar,  the  author  of  the  Manual  for 
Young  Ladies,  and  Margaret  had  been  invited  to 
return  with  the  party.  But  Uncle  Abraham  soon 
showed  her  that  this  was  impossible.  Everybody  was 
sorry  for  poor  Margaret.  Harriet  Martineau  was 
especially  sorry,  but  Emerson  rebuked  her:  "Does 
Margaret  Fuller,  supposing  her  to  be  what  you  say, 
believe  her  progress  to  be  dependent  on  whether  she 
is  here  or  there?"  Margaret  thought  it  did;  never 
theless  she  decided,  after  much  agonizing,  not  to  for 
sake  her  family.  Her  self-sacrifice  was  greatly  ad 
mired  by  her  friends  and  much  celebrated  by  her 
.biographers.  But  Margaret,  who  had  a  truthful 


Miranda  45 


nature,  wrote  to  her  brother  some  years  afterwards, 
"  Probably,  if  I  had  been  aware  at  the  time  of  what 
I  was  doing,  I  might  not  have  sacrificed  myself  so." 

But  she  no  longer  contemplated  a  future  on  the 
farm.  One  evening,  while  calling  on  some  poor  neigh 
bors  in  Groton,  she  had  a  vision  that  stirred  her  to 
action.  "  The  moon  tempted  me  out,  and  I  set  forth 
for  a  house  at  no  great  distance  ...  I  will  try  to 
give  you  an  impression  of  what  you,  I  fancy,  have 
never  come  in  contact  with.  The  little  room — they 
have  but  one — contains  a  bed,  a  table,  and  some  old 
chairs.  A  single  stick  of  wood  burns  in  the  fireplace. 
It  is  not  needed  now,  but  those  who  sit  near  it  have 
long  ceased  to  know  what  spring  is.  They  are  all 
frost.  Everything  is  old  and  faded,  but  at  the  same 
time  as  clean  and  carefully  mended  as  possible.  For 
all  they  know  of  pleasure  is  to  get  strength  to  sweep 
those  few  boards,  and  mend  those  old  spreads  and 
curtains.  That  sort  of  self-respect  they  have,  and  it 
is  all  of  pride  their  many  years  of  poor-tithe  has  left 
them. 

"And  there  they  sit, — mother  and  daughter.  In 
the  mother,  ninety  years  have  quenched  every  thought 
and  every  feeling,  except  an  imbecile  interest  about  her 
daughter,  and  the  sort  of  self-respect  I  just  spoke  of. 
Husband,  sons,  strength,  health,  house  and  lands,  all 
are  gone.  And  yet  those  losses  have  not  had  power 


Margaret  Fuller 


to  bow  that  palsied  head  to  the  grave.  Morning  by 
morning,  she  rises  without  a  hope,  night  by  night 
she  lies  down  vacant  or  apathetic.  .  .  .  We  look  on 
this  dry  leaf,  and  think  how  green  it  was,  and  how  the 
birds  sung  to  it  in  its  summer  day. 

"  But  can  we  think  of  spring,  or  summer,  or  any 
thing  joyous  or  really  life-like,  when  we  look  at  the 
daughter? — that  bloodless  effigy  of  humanity,  whose 
care  is  to  eke  out  this  miserable  existence  by  means 
of  the  occasional  doles  of  those  who  know  how  faithful 
and  good  a  child  she  has  been  to  that  decrepit  creature. 
.  '.  .  The  saddest  part  is,  that  she  does  not  wish  for 
death.  She  clings  to  this  sordid  existence.  Her  soul 
is  now  so  habitually  enwrapt  in  the  meanest  cares, 
that  if  she  were  to  be  lifted  two  or  three  steps  upward, 
she  would  not  know  what  to  do  with  her  life;  how, 
then,  shall  she  soar  to  the  celestial  heights?  Yet  she 
ought;  for  she  has  ever  been  good,  and  her  crushing 
duties  have  been  performed  with  a  self-sacrificing  con 
stancy,  which  I,  for  one,  could  never  hope  to  equal. " 

A  short  time  after  writing  this  sketch,  Margaret  was 
looking  for  a  job.  She  found  one  as  a  teacher  of 
languages  in  Mr.  Alcott's  school.  She  gave  private 
lessons  as  well  and  translated  De  Wette  and  Herder 
evenings  for  Dr.  Channing.  Her  cherished  plan  was 
to  write  a  life  of  Goethe;  but  the  Alcott  school  soon 
failed  and  Margaret  left  Boston  to  teach  in  Providence, 


Miranda  47 


Rhode  Island.  The  ambitious  idea  of  writing  a  life 
of  Goethe  was  exchanged  for  the  more  modest  task 
of  translating  Eckermann's  Conversations.  Goethe  at 
that  time  enjoyed  a  very  unsavory  reputation  in  New 
England.  Longfellow  expressed  the  general  feeling 
in  a  lecture  at  Harvard,  "  What  I  most  object  to  in  the 
old  gentleman  is  his  sensuality."  And  even  Emerson 
could  not  forbear  joining  in  the  popular  disgust.  "  The 
Puritan  in  me  accepts  no  apology  for  bad  morals  in 
such  as  he,"  he  said.  Considering  all  this  adverse 
feeling,  Margaret's  solitary  and  unsupported  enthusi 
asm  for  the  disreputable  old  gentleman  must  have 
seemed  at  least  unwomanly.  She  wrote  a  defense  of 
Goethe,  which  was  published  as  an  introduction  to  her 
Eckermann's  Conversations  and  which  still  ranks  as 
one  of  the  best  pieces  of  Goethe  criticism  extant. 

In  Providence,  Margaret  led  an  active  life.  She 
called  herself  the  "  Lady  Superior  "of  her  school,  still 
evidently  under  the  spell  of  the  Canoness  Giinderode, 
but  she  did  not  fully  espouse  the  part.  She  went  to 
political  meetings  and  envied  the  political  orators.  A 
French  man-of-war,  anchored  in  the  bay,  stirred  her 
imagination.  "  I  thought  I  much  should  like  to  com 
mand  such  a  vessel,  despite  all  the  hardships  and  priva 
tions  of  such  a  situation."  She  horrified  the  director 
of  her  school  by  attending  a  Whig  Caucus  and  wrote 
to  a  friend,  "  It  is  rather  the  best  thing  I  have  done." 


48  Margaret  Fuller 

The  school-mistress  began  to  feel  herself  a  citizen  of 
the  world. 

At  last  the  farm  was  sold,  and  Margaret  returned 
home  for  a  rest  until  the  new  tenants  should  take 
possession  in  the  spring.  She  returned  in  the  midst 
of  the  wintry  snows  and  devoted  her  "  rest "  period 
to  almost  constant  invalidism.  After  her  active  life 
in  Providence,  she  became  a  sickly,  aging  spinster, — 
one  of  the  tragic  and  benumbed  sisterhood,  of  whom 
Elizabeth  Barrett  wrote — 

"  How  dreary  'tis  for  women  to  sit  still 
On  winter  nights,  by  solitary  fires, 
And  hear  the  nations  praising  them  far  off." 

When  she  at  last  escaped  from  the  clutches  of  the 
farm  and  moved  her  family  to  Jamaica  Plain,  near 
Boston,  she  wrote  to  Emerson  triumphantly,  "This 
day  I  ii  fTljjfififrTiiij  jm  ii  hired  house  and  am  full 
of  the  dignity  of  citizenship.  Really,  it  is  almost 
happiness." 

Presently  Margaret  woke  up  to  discover  that  she 
was  thirty  and  life  still  unaccountably  passed  her  by. 
"  Tonight  I  lay  on  the  sofa,"  she  wrote,  "  and  saw  how 
the  flame  shot  up  from  beneath,  through  the  mass  of 
coal  that  had  been  piled  above.  It  shot  up  in  wild, 
beautiful  jets,  and  then  unexpectedly  sank  again,  and 
all  was  black,  unsightly,  and  forlorn.  And  thus,  I 


Miranda  49 


thought,  is  it  with  my  life  at  present.  Yet  if  the  fire 
beneath  persists  and  conquers,  that  dead  mass  will 
become  all  radiant,  life-giving,  fit  for  the  altar  on  the 
domestic  hearth.  Yes,  and  it  shall  be  so."  At  times 
she  tried  to  persuade  herself  that  she  was  willing  to 
postpone  the  whole  thing  until  another  incarnation. 
"  Please,  good  genius  of  my  life,  to  make  me  very 
patient,  resolute,  gentle,  while  no  less  ardent;  and 
after  having  tried  me  well,  please  present,  at  the  end 
of  some  thousand  years  or  so,  a  sphere  of  congenial 
and  consecutive  labors;  of  heart- felt,  heart-filling 
wishes  carried  out  into  life  on  the  instant."  But  then 
at  other  times  she  felt  that  any  delay  at  all  was  danger 
ous.  "  Once  I  was  almost  all  intellect,"  she  wrote, 
"  now  I  am  almost  all  feeling.  Nature  vindicates  her 
rights,  and  I  feel  all  Italy  glowing  beneath  the  Saxon 
crust.  This  cannot  last  long;  I  shall  burn  to  ashes 
if  all  this  smolders  here  much  longer.  I  must  die 
if  I  do  not  burst  forth  in  genius  or  heroism." 

In  her  desperation  she  confided  her  longing  to  the 
dead  Beethoven.  Returning  from  the  symphony,  she 
sat  down  at  her  desk  and  wrote :  "  My  only  friend ; — 
How  shall  I  thank  thee  for  one  more  breaking  the 
chains  of  my  sorrowful  slumber?  My  heart  beats.  I 
live  again,  for  I  feel  that  I  am  worthy  audience  for 
thee,  and  that  my  being  would  be  reason  enough  for 
thine.  Master,  my  eyes  are  always  clear.  I  see  that 


50  Margaret  Fuller 

the  universe  is  rich,  if  I  am  poor.  I  see  the  insignifi 
cance  of  my  sorrows.  In  my  will,  I  am  not  a  captive; 
in  my  intellect,  not  a  slave.  Is  it  then  my  fault  that  the 
palsy  of  my  affections  benumbs  my  whole  life? 

"  I  know  that  the  curse  is  but  for  the  time.  I  know 
what  the  eternal  justice  promises.  But  on  this  one 
sphere,  it  is  sad.  Thou  didst  say,  thou  hadst  no  friend 
but  thy  art.  But  that  one  is  enough.  I  have  no  art, 
in  which  to  vent  the  swell  of  a  soul  as  deep  as  thine, 
Beethoven,  and  of  a  kindred  frame.  Thou  wilt  not 
think  me  presumptuous  in  this  saying,  as  another 
might.  I  have  always  known  that  thou  wouldst  wel 
come  and  know  me,  as  would  no  other  who  ever  lived 
upon  this  earth  since  its  first  creation.  Thou  wouldst 
forgive  me,  master,  that  I  have  not  been  true  to  my 
eventual  destiny,  and  therefore  have  suffered  on  every 
side  'the  pangs  of  despised  love.'  Thou  didst  the 
same,  but  thou  didst  borrow  from  these  errors  the 
inspiration  of  thy  genius.  Why  is  it  not  thus  with  me  ? 
Is  it  because,  as  a  woman,  I  am  bound  by  a  physical 
law,  which  prevents  the  soul  from  manifesting  itself? 
Sometimes  the  moon  seems  mockingly  to  say  so — to 
say  that  I,  too,  shall  not  shine,  unless  I  find  a  sun. 
O,  cold  and  barren  moon,  tell  a  different  tale ! 

"  But  thou,  oh  blessed  master !  dost  answer  all  my 
questions,  and  make  it  my  privilege  to  be.  Like  a 
humble  wife  to  the  sage,  or  poet,  it  is  my  triumph 


Miranda 


that  I  can  understand  and  cherish  thee :  like  a  mistress, 
I  arm  thee  for  the  fight ;  like  a  young  daughter,  I  ten 
derly  bind  thy  wounds.  Thou  art  to  me  beyond  com 
pare,  for  thou  art  all  I  want.  No  heavenly  sweetness 
of  saint  or  martyr,  no  many  leaved  Raphael,  no  golden 
Plato,  is  anything  to  me  compared  with  thee.  The 
infinite  Shakespeare,  the  stern  Angelo,  Dante — bitter 
sweet  like  thee — are  no  longer  seen  in  thy  presence. 
And  besides  these  names,  there  are  none  that  could 
vibrate  in  thy  crystal  sphere.  Thou  hast  all  of  them, 
and  that  ample  surge  of  life  besides,  that  great  winged 
being  which  they  only  dreamed  of.  There  is  none 
greater  than  Shakespeare;  he,  too,  is  a  god;  but  his 
creations  are  successive;  thy  fiat  comprehends  them 
all.  .  .  . 

"  Master,  I  have  this  summer  envied  the  oriole 
which  had  even  a  swinging  nest  in  the  high  bough.  I 
have  envied  the  least  flower  that  came  to  seed,  though 
that  seed  were  strown  to  the  wind.  But  I  envy  none 
when  I  am  with  thee.".  .  . 

Steeped  in  the  seductive  mysticism  of  Novalis, 
Margaret  tried  to  find  consolation  for  her  surcharged 
longings  in  a  life  of  visions.  But  she  was  by  no 
means  a  success  as  a  mystic,  her  tendency  being,  as  she 
put  it,  "  rather  to  a  great  natural  than  a  deep  religious 
life."  Nevertheless,  she  was  not  to  leave  that  ex 
perience  untried.  In  the  summer  of  1840  she  isolated 


Margaret  Fuller 


herself  completely,  hoping  to  learn  the  lesson  of  renun 
ciation  through  communion  with  ideal  spirits  and  celes 
tial  loves.  She  declared  that  she  achieved  a  state  of 
ecstasy  and  a  haven  of  spiritual  peace.  But  soon 
after  she  was  writing,  "  Renunciation  appears  to  be 
complete,  and  I  am  quite  content;  yet,  probably,  'tis 
no  such  thing,  and  that  work  is  to  be  done  over  and 
over  again."  In  this  surmise,  she  was  altogether  cor 
rect. 

At  this  time  of  her  life,  Margaret  cultivated  a  de 
mon.  Goethe  also  had  a  demon  and  so  did  Soc 
rates  but  Emerson  did  not.  He  was  profoundly  ir 
ritated  by  demons,  but  Margaret  insisted  on  telling 
him  the  news  of  hers.  "With  me  for  weeks  and 
months  the  demon  works  his  will,"  she  declared.  To 
keep  her  demon  company,  she  built  up  "  a  little  my 
thology  of  her  own,"  in  which  anniversaries  and  sym 
bols  were  seriously  considered.  She  adopted  the 
carbuncle  for  her  favorite  stone  and  the  sistrum  for 
her  emblem.  Her  definition  of  the  demoniacal  was 
taken  from  Goethe,  but  she  explained  it  in  her  own 
way  thus  :  "  In  genius  and  in  character,  it  works  .  .  . 
instinctively;  it  refuses  to  be  analyzed  by  the  under 
standing,  and  is  most  of  all  inaccessible  to  the  person 
who  possesses  it.  We  can  only  say,  I  have  it,  he  has 
it.  ...  It  has  given  rise  to  the  fables  of  wizard,  en 
chantress,  and  the  like;  these  beings  are  scarcely  good, 


Miranda  53 


yet  not  necessarily  bad.  Power  tempts  them."  Thus 
she  tried  to  analyze  the  power  of  the  unconscious, 
that  unknown  and  inexplicable  force, — repressed  yet 
irrepressible,  forgotten  but  indestructible, — by  which 
she  felt  herself  enthralled  but  which  was  at  the  same 
time  the  source  of  all  her  energy.  Modern  psychology 
has  fully  justified  her  analysis  of  the  source  of  her 
creative  energy  and  accounted  for  the  resistance  on 
the  part  of  Emerson,  himself  incapable  of  abandon, 
to  the  recognition  of  a  power  which  defied  a  rational 
istic  explanation. 

Besides  her  demon,  she  cultivated  a  midnight  per 
sonality  whom  she  called  "  Leila."  To  Leila  she  ad 
dressed  herself  in  a  sketch  which  appeared  in  an  early 
issue  of  The  Dial.  "  I  did  not  love  thee,  Leila,  but 
the  desire  for  love  was  soothed  in  thy  presence."  She 
describes  her  dealings  with  the  dream-world  through 
Leila.  "At  night  I  look  into  the  lake  for  Leila.  If 
I  gaze  steadily  and  in  the  singleness  of  prayer,  she 
rises  and  walks  on  its  depths.  Then  know  I  each  night 
a  part  of  her  life ;  I  know  where  she  passes  the  mid 
night  hours.  In  the  day  she  lives  among  men;  she 
observes  their  deeds,  and  gives  them  what  they  want  of 
her,  justice  or  love.  ...  In  the  night  she  wanders 
forth  from  her  human  investment,  and  travels  amid 
these  tribes,  freer  movers  in  the  game  of  spirit  and 
matter,  to  whom  this  man  is  a  supplement.  I  know  not 


54  Margaret  Fuller 

then  whether  she  is  what  men  call  dreaming,  but  her 
life  is  true,  full,  and  more  single  than  by  day.  .  .  . 

"  They  say  that  such  purity  is  the  seal  of  death. 
It  is  so;  the  condition  of  this  ecstasy  is,  that  it  seems 
to  die  every  moment,  and  even  Leila  has  not  force  to 
die  often;  the  electricity  accumulates  many  days  before 
the  wild  one  comes,  which  leads  to  these  sylph  nights 
of  tearful  sweetness.  After  one  of  these,  I  find  her 
always  to  have  retreated  into  the  secret  veins  of  earth. 
Then  glows  through  her  whole  being  the  fire  that  so 
baffles  men,  as  she  walks  on  the  surface  of  the  earth; 
the  blood-red,  heart's-blood-red  of  the  universal  heart, 
with  no  care  except  to  circulate  as  the  vital  fluid ;  and  it 
would  seem  waste  then  for  her  to  rise  to  the  surface." 

Frustrated  in  her  affections,  brooding  over  her 
famine  in  the  midst  of  plenty,  Margaret  found  that 
she  could  at  least  indulge  herself  in  fantasies  and 
reveries.  These  treasured  unrealities  were  the  after 
math  of  Irer  father's  death.'  The  whole  thing  was  a 
process  of  self -cheating.  She  thought  that  she  would 
achieve  happiness  by  a  renunciation  which  was  after 
all  no  renunciation.  It  was,  on  the  contrary,  an  in 
dulgence  in  a  visionary  clinging  to  a  companionship 
which  belonged  to  the  past.  "  How  often  has  the 
spirit  chosen  the  time,  when  no  ray  came  from  without, 
to  descend  upon  the  orphan  life,"  she  wrote  in  her 
Journal.  "  The  great  spirit  wished  to  leave  me  no 


Miranda  55 


refuge  but  itself."  Her  phenomenal  energies  were 
running  to  waste  in  pathological  quicksands,  and  she 
tampered  with  her  mental  health  as  at  other  times  she 
had  tampered  with  her  physical  health.  She  abandoned 
herself  to  charms  and  spells,  to  symbolism  and  mysti 
cism,  employing  such  things  as  a  means  of  reviving 
within  herself  certain  childish  states  of  feeling,  which 
were  all  she  knew  of  happiness.  With  a  flash  of  in 
sight,  she  one  day  declared  in  her  Journal  that  "  in  feel 
ing,  she  was  still  a  child." 

From  this  desert  of  the  early  thirties,  Margaret  was 
in  time  to  emerge  pretty  completely.  But  it  was  just 
during  this  period  of  her  life  that  her  relations  with 
Emerson  were  intimate,  and  he  always  saw  her  in  this 
character.  But  whether  she  languished  among  her 
visions  or  actually  betook  herself  to  a  sick  bed,  she 
displayed  an  amount  of  energy  which  astounded  him. 
"  She  had  a  rude  strength,  which,  if  it  could  have  been 
supported  by  an  equal  health,  would  have  given  her 
the  efficiency  of  the  strongest  man,"  he  said.  He 
declared  that  he  could  not  vie  with  her  in  the  volume 
of  work  that  she  turned  out  in  spite  of  her  frequent 
disability.  Yet  neither  he  nor  any  of  the  others  seemed 
to  waste  much  time  over  the  anomalous  combination 
of  frail  health  and  inexhaustible  energy.  It  did  not 
strike  them  as  anything  suspicious  or  inexplicable. 
There  were  many  such  heroines  of  the  sick  bed  in  the 


56  Margaret  Fuller 

early  Victorian  and  late  Puritan  era,  so  that  Margaret's 
case  was  not  entirely  unique. 

Apparently  she  realized  that  it  would  cost  her  a  long 
and  weary  process  to  adapt  herself  to  normal  life. 
Her  muscular  personality  could  not  imitate  the  ethereal 
Giinderode.  Discordant  action  was  always  preferable 
to  her  to  stoical  inaction.  Therefore  she  compared 
herself  to  a  sistrum,  a  triangular  musical  instrument 
which  is  induced  to  produce  musical  sounds  by  being 
ceaselessly  agitated,  and  she  wrote  these  verses  to 
her  emblem : — 


"  Triune,  shaping,  restless  power, 
Life-flow  from  life's  natal  hour, 
No  music  chords  are  in  thy  sound; 
By  some  thou'rt  but  a  rattle  found; 
Yet,  without  thy  ceaseless  motion, 
To  ice  would  turn  their  dead  devotion. 

"  Life-flow  of  my  natal  hour, 
I  will  not  weary  of  thy  power, 
Till  in  the  changes  of  thy  sound, 
A  chord's  three  parts  distinct  are  found. 
I  will  faithful  move  with  thee, 
God-ordered,  self-fed  energy, 
Nature  in  eternity." 


CHAPTER  V 
A  WOMAN'S  WOMAN 

MARGARET  emerged  into  public  life  as  a  woman's 
woman.  In  her  individual  relationships,  she  ex 
hibited,  of  course,  the  same  characteristic.  She  in 
spired  other  women  with  enthusiastic  discipleship, 
which  was  sometimes  hard  for  men  to  understand, 
especially  if  they  happened  to  be  the  husbands  of  her 
disciples.  Horace  Greeley  spoke  with  great  asperity 
of  the  fascination  which  she  seemed  to  exert  over 
eminent  and  cultivated  women,  who  came  to  his  out- 
of-the-way  dwelling  to  visit  her,  and  who  seemed 
generally  "to  regard  her  with  a  strangely  Oriental 
adoration."  In  other  words,  Mr.  Greeley  could  not 
fathom  the  attraction  she  had  for  his  wife. 

Margaret  Fuller's  feminism  represents  the  socializa 
tion  of  a  part  of  that  "  instinctive  life  ",  which,  con 
trary  to  her  Puritan  upbringing,  she  had  learned  to 
recognize  and  value.  The  feminism  of  women,  like 
the  corresponding'  form  of  sex-solidarity  among  men, 
is  based  on  a  social  impulse  which  is  in  turn,  rooted 
in  an  erotic  impulse  towards  others  of  one's  own  sex. 
The  destruction  of  this  impulse  is  neither  possible  nor 

57 


$8  Margaret  Fuller 

desirable.  Women  who  are  unfriendly  and  unsympa 
thetic  toward  the  mass  problems  of  their  own  sex  are 
defective  on  this  side  of  their  emotional  development. 
Somewhere  along  the  road  of  their  evolving  charac 
ters,  they  have  lost  the  capacity  for  a  social  emotion 
of  a  very  high  value. 

Margaret's  life  was  a  better  argument  for  woman's 
rights  than  anything  she  ever  wrote.  What  she  said 
of  Mary  Wollstonecraft  and  George  Sand  applied 
with  equal  truth  to  herself.  "  Mary  Wollstonecraft, 
like  .  .  .  George  Sand  in  our  day,  was  a  woman 
whose  existence  proved  the  need  of  some  new  inter 
pretation  of  woman's  rights  more  than  anything  she 
wrote.  Such  beings  as  these,  rich  in  genius,  of  most 
tender  sympathies,  capable  of  high  virtue  and  a, 
chastened  harmony,  ought  not  to  find  themselves,  by 
birth,  in  a  place  so  narrow,  that  in  breaking  bonds,  they 
become  outlaws." 

In  this  sense,  Margaret  too  was  an  outlaw.  She 
was  hedged  about  by  a  prejudice  and  misrepresenta 
tion  which  almost  assumed  the  character  of  a  social 
boycott.  She  shared  the  fate  of  every  famous  woman 
from  Sappho  onward,  who  has  set  an  example  of 
emancipation  for  their  sex.  People  who  did  not  know 
Margaret  in  Boston,  avoided  an  introduction,  and,  but 
for  her  own  athletic  efforts  to  prevent  it,  she  would 
have  been  well  isolated. 


A  Woman's  Woman 


Among  her  own  sex,  Margaret  never  lacked  for 
champions.  Though  Mr.  Greeley  was  mystified  by 
her  influence  over  women,  Mr.  Higginson  had  a  sim 
ple  explanation  for  it.  "  Margaret  Fuller  loved  music, 
painting,  and  women,"  said  he,  "  and  understood  the 
last." 

She  studied  the  conditions  of  women's  lives  and 
recorded  her  observations  with  the  accuracy  and  ob 
jectivity  which  belongs  to  modern  social  research. 
"  The  observations  of  women  upon  the  position  of 
women  are  always  more  valuable  than  those  of  men/' 
she  said.  Wherever  she  traveled,  Margaret  never 
failed  to  remark  the  facts  about  the  women  —  their  ap 
pearance,  their  behavior,  their  social  position.  Now 
it  would  be  the  Indian  squaws  whom  she  saw  near 
Chicago.  "  With  the  women  I  held  much  communi 
cation  by  signs,"  she  wrote.  "  They  are  almost  in 
variably  coarse  and  ugly,  with  the  exception  of  their 
eyes,  with  a  peculiarly  awkward  gait,  and  forms  bent 
by  burdens.  This  gait,  so  different  from  the  steady 
and  noble  step  of  the  men,  marks  the  inferior  position 
they  occupy."  Compare  this  with  her  impression  of 
Italian  women  written  seven  years  later.  "The 
women  of  Aries,"  she  said,  "  answered  to  their  repu 
tation  for  beauty;  tall,  erect,  and  noble,  with  high  and 
dignified  features,  and  a  full  earnest  gaze  of  the  eye. 
...  .  ;.  Even  the  very  old  women  still  have  a  degree 


6o  Margaret  Fuller 

of  beauty  because  when  the  colors  are  all  faded,  and 
the  skin  wrinkled,  the  face  retains  this  dignity  of  out 
line.  The  men  do  not  share  in  these  characteristics. 
Some  priestess,  well-beloved  of  the  powers  of  old  re 
ligion,  must  have  called  down  a  special  blessing  on  her 
sisters  in  this  town." 

Everywhere  she  commented  on  the  character  of 
women's  work.  The  life  of  the  Illinois  farmer's  wife, 
the  washer-women  of  New  York,  the  weavers  of  Lan 
cashire  and  Lyons — all  women  who  earned  their 
bread  were  closely  observed  by  her.  During  her  stay 
in  New  York  she  helped  to  organize  the  first  protec 
tive  association  for  prostitutes  and  she  carried  on  for 
years  a  study  of  the  social  and  economic  causes  of 
prostitution.  Writing  from  Paris,  she  said,  "  I  have 
collected  many  facts  with  regard  to  this  suffering  class 
of  women,  both  in  England  and  in  France.  ...  I 
have  seen  the  feelings  of  men  with  regard  to  their 
condition  and  the  general  heartlessness  in  women  of 
more  favored  and  protected  lives,  which  I  can  only 
ascribe  to  utter  ignorance  of  the  facts.  If  a  proclama 
tion  of  some  of  these  can  remove  it,  I  hope  to  make 
such  a  one  in  the  hour  of  riper  judgment,  and  after 
a  more  extensive  survey."  And,  still  later,  writing 
about  Italy,  she  said  that  the  subjection  of  women 
there  had  sharpened  her  perceptions  to  the  ills  of 
women's  condition  and  the  remedies  that  must  be  ap- 


A  Woman's  Woman  61 

plied,  adding,  "  Had  I  but  genius,  had  I  but  energy, 
to  tell  what  I  know  as  it  ought  to  be  told."  As  Hig- 
ginson  said,  she  loved  women  and  knew  them,  and 
to  the  end  of  her  life  she  served  with  earnestness 
and  sincerity  the  world-wide  community  of  her 
sex. 

The  famous  "  Conversations "  which  she  held  in 
Boston  from  1839  to  1844,  were  really  an  experiment 
in  feminism.  Casting  about  for  an  occupation  and  a 
career,  the  idea  of  a  "  paid  Corinne  "  naturally  pre 
sented  itself.  She  was  one  of  the  best  impromptu 
talkers  of  her  time,  and  it  was  an  era  of  great 
talkers.  Coleridge  and  Carlyle  were  Titans  with  the 
tongue  and,  in  America,  Alcott,  Channing,  and 
Emerson  were  the  leaders  of  a  talkers'  guild  which 
centered  around  Concord.  It  was  just  the  time  for 
Margaret  to  try  her  luck  as  an  improvisatrice,  for  her 
demon  had  a  brilliant  turn  for  all  this  kind  of  thing. 
As  far  back  as  her  boarding-school  days,  when  the 
fifteen-year-old  girl  would  spin  like  a  Dervish  and  then 
suddenly  halt  and  improvise,  her  demon  had  been  pre 
paring  her  for  this  career.  She  said  candidly  about 
herself:  "  Conversation  is  my  natural  element.  I  need 
to  be  called  out,  and  never  think  alone,  without  im 
agining  some  companion.  Whether  this  be  nature  or 
the  force  of  circumstances,  I  know  not;  it  is  my  habit, 
and  bespeaks  a  second-rate  mind."  For  all  her  ambi- 


62  Margaret  Fuller 

tion  and  her  alleged  self-esteem  she  was  perfectly  will 
ing  to  face  her  own  limitations. 

Her  scheme  of  Conversations  addressed  itself  to 
women  and  to  women  only.  The  purpose  was,  as  her 
prospectus  said,  "  to  supply  a  point  of  union  to  well- 
educated  and  thinking  women,  in  a  city,  which,  with 
great  pretensions  to  mental  refinement,  boasts,  at 
present,  nothing  of  the  kind."  Thus  she  set  out  to 
imitate  Aspasia,  corrupting  the  women  of  Athens  by 
means  of  intellectual  orgies.  The  prospectus  continues 
to  outline  Margaret's  aim,  which  is  to  counteract  the 
bad  education  of  her  sex.  Her  ambition  is  "  to  sys 
tematize  thought  and  give  a  precision  and  clearness 
in  which  our  sex  are  so  deficient,  chiefly,  I  think,  be 
cause  they  have  so  few  inducements  to  test  and  classify 
what  they  receive.  To  ascertain  what  pursuits  are  best 
suited  to  us,  in  our  time  and  state  of  society,  and  how 
we  may  make  best  use  of  our  means  for  building  up 
the  life  of  thought  upon  the  life  of  action."  In  her 
introductory  meeting,  she  expanded  her  jtext  more 
fully.  "  Women  are  now  taught,  at  school,  all  that 
men  are.  .  .  .  But  with  this  difference;  men  are 
called  on,  from  a  very  early  period  to  reproduce  all 
that  they  learn.  Their  college  exercises,  their  political 
duties,  their  professional  studies,  the  first  actions  of 
life  in  any  direction,  call  on  them  to  put  to  use  what 
they  have  learned.  But  women  learn  without  any  at- 


A  Woman's  Woman  63 

tempt  to  reproduce.  Their  only  reproduction  is  for 
purposes  of  display."  Yet  Margaret's  Conversa 
tions  are  usually  spoken  of  as  a  purely  literary  affair 
instead  of  the  feminist  adventure  which  they  really 
were. 

The  original  class  of  twenty-five  "ladies"  came 
together  in  Elizabeth  Peabody's  rooms  in  West  Street. 
The  first  series  of  talks  was  on  "  Grecian  Mythology;  " 
the  second,  on  "The  Fine  Arts;"  the  third,  on 
"  Woman."  There  was  one  isolated  conversation 
which  dealt  with  "  Persons  who  never  awake  to  life 
in  this  world."  There  must  have  been  a  number  of 
Boston  ladies  present  who  could  have  contributed 
something  on  this  theme.  Margaret's  talks  were 
mainly  drawn  from  Goethe's  philosophy  of  life,  from 
whom  she  had  derived  a  heterodox  attitude  on  the 
subject  of  "  moral  evil "  which  was  sometimes  very 
disturbing  to  the  ladies  of  her  class.  But  the  talks 
on  "Woman:  Her  Position  in  the  Family,  in  the 
School,  in  the  Church  and  in  Society"  embodied  a 
composite  critique  which  must  have  been  built  up  very 
largely  out  of  the  thoughts  and  personal  experiences 
of  those  present.  The  outcome  of  the  class  was  Mar 
garet's  book  on  Woman  in  the  Nineteenth  Century, 
which  in  its  turn  prepared  the  way  for  the  Seneca 
Falls  Convention  of  1848  and  the  woman's  rights  con 
ventions  of  the  '5o's. 


64  Margaret  Fuller 

The  new  class,  which  included  the  feminine  intel 
ligentsia  of  Boston,  became  naturally  the  butt  of  wits 
and  the  prey  of  scoffers.  Their  pretensions  were  de 
rided  and  the  leader  was  put  down  as  a  "pedant." 
Margaret's  crowning  offense,  in  the  eyes  of  the  philis- 
tines,  was  that  she  arrayed  herself  to  look  her  best  on 
these  occasions  and  her  disciples  naively  imitated  her 
"  dressiness/'  Harriet  Martineau,  in  a  fit  of  pique 
against  her  former  friend,  once  described  Margaret's 
group  as  "gorgeous  pedants."  All  this  criticism 
grew  out  of  the  fact  that  her  young  admirers  came 
away  delighted  with  "her  beautiful  looks"  and  her 
"  sumptuous  dress."  Emerson  tried  to  refute  these 
accusations,  which  he  took  very  seriously,  by  protest 
ing  that  he  personally  knew  that  Margaret  did  not 
over-spend  herself  on  dress  and  that  she  could  not 
possibly  have  looked  beautiful.  He  admitted  that  the 
"  impression  of  her  genius  "  might  have  "  obscured 
her  homeliness  of  feature."  But  he  did  not  admit 
that  the  adoration  of  her  young  friends  might  have 
imparted  a  glamour  to  its  object  such  as  affection  is 
accustomed  to  impart.  The  Puritan  in  him  might 
allow  for  the  play  of  genius,  but  not  for  the  play  of 
a  perfectly  natural  feeling  which  made  these  women 
like  to  dress  to  please  each  other. 

A  great  impetus  to  the  woman  movement  in  this 
country  was  given  by  the  anti-slavery  convention  in 


A  Woman  s  Woman  65 

London.  The  exclusion  of  the  women  from  the  floor 
stirred  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton  and  Lucretia  Mott 
profoundly  and  gave  the  impulse  to  the  protest  which 
was  voiced  by  the  Seneca  Falls  Convention  eight 
years  later.  In  Mrs.  Stanton's  account  of  this  his 
toric  event,  she  says  of  Lucretia  Mott,  "  I  shall  never 
forget  the  look  of  recognition  she  gave  me  when  she 
saw  by  my  remarks  that  I  fully  comprehended  the 
problem  of  woman's  rights  and  wrongs.  How  beau 
tiful  she  looked  to  me  that  day!  "  This  would  seem 
to  indicate  that  the  same  kind  of  emotional  sympathy 
was  at  work  in  this  contemporary  group  which  char 
acterized  the  atmosphere  of  the  conversation  class. 
Of  course  this  sentiment  was  frowned  upon  by  people 
who  found  it  perfectly  normal  and  moral,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  women  should  be  antagonistic  and  com 
petitive  in  their  relations  with  other  women.  In  the 
same  way  they  have  stigmatized  all  affection  among 
men  until  a  modern  psychologist  like  Ferenczi  declares 
that,  "  to  an  astounding  extent,  present-day  men  have 
lost  the  capacity  for  mutual  affection  and  amiability." 
This  attitude  assumes  that  ill-will  among  men  and  ill- 
will  among  women  are  the  only  basis  for  good-will 
between  the  sexes,  whereas  it  should  be  evident  that 
social  good-will  cannot  possibly  obtain  on  a  basis  of 
resistance  and  antagonism  within  a  whole  sex.  But 
when  Margaret  Fuller  taught,  in  the  words  of 


66  Margaret  Fuller 

Antigone,  that  "  the  aim  of  women  is  not  to  hate  but 
to  love  each  other,"  there  were  many  who  hastened 
to  construe  this  as  "  the  aim  of  women  is  not  to  love 
but  to  hate  men."  Nothing  was  more  foreign  to 
Margaret's  real  feeling.  She  was,  in  fact,  a  very  poor 
hater  of  anybody;  she  had  few  personal  quarrels  and 
few  resentments. 

After  the  Conversations  had  been  going  for  a  year 
or  so  and  had  proved  a  great  success,  it  was  proposed 
that  gentlemen  should  be  admitted.  Margaret  had  the 
very  practical  idea  that  the  advantages  of  a  Harvard 
training  would  enable  them  to  contribute  an  element 
of  strength  to  the  discussions  of  Mythology  which  the 
feeble  learning  of  the  ladies  necessarily  could  not 
supply.  So  an  arrangement  for  evening  classes  was 
made  and  the  gentlemen  were  invited  to  participate. 
But  somehow  the  scheme  did  not  prosper,  and  the 
masculine  contingent  hastily  retreated,  though  in  per 
fectly  good  order.  Nobody  could  quite  say  just  what 
the  trouble  was.  Emerson  thought  the  men  had  been 
too  "  heady  "  and  had  fancied  that  "  they  too  must 
assert  and  dogmatize/'  But  one  of  Margaret's  pupils 
declared  that  her  erudition  had  quite  outshone  that  of 
the  men  and  even  Mr.  Emerson  "  had  only  served  to 
display  her  powers."  "  His  uncompromising  ideal 
ism,  his  absolute  denial  of  the  fact  of  human  nature," 
says  this  friend,  "  gave  her  opportunity  and  excite- 


A  Woman  s  Woman  67 

ment  to  unfold  and  illustrate  her  realism  and  accept 
ance  of  conditions."  But  even  this  loyal  pupil  has 
one  troubled  after-thought :  "  I  have  thought  some 
times  that  her  acceptance  of  evil  was  too  great."  But 
whether  Margaret  estranged  the  gentlemen  by  her 
handling  of  evil  or  in  some  other  way,  they  never  came 
again. 

The  oddest  part  of  this  affair  was  that  Margaret 
was  all  the  while  a  prominent  member  of  the  Trans 
cendental  circle,  where  she  was  accepted  on  equal  terms 
by  these  same  men.  Among  the  Transcendentalists, 
Margaret — as  she  said — "  played  the  Mirabeau." 
But  here  she  was  received  as  a  woman  who  had  "  sur 
passed  her  sex,"  and  her  extraordinary  conversational 
gifts  were  warmly  applauded.  Perhaps  she  referred 
to  the  Transcendental  fraternity  when  she  wrote: 
"  Their  encomiums,  indeed,  are  always  in  some  sense 
mortifying;  they  show  too  much  surprise.  '  Can  this 
be  you?  '  he  cries  to  the  transfigured  Cinderella;  '  well, 
I  should  never  have  thought  it,  but  I  am  very  glad. 
.  .  .  We  will  tell  everyone  that  you  have  surpassed 
your  sex  V  Margaret  Fuller  was  far  from  being  one 
of  those  superior  women  who  relish  the  distinction 
of  being  "  the  only  woman  who." 

In  1844,  she  published  her  Woman  in  the  Nine 
teenth  Century.  It  had  previously  appeared  as  an 
essay  in  The  Dial  under  the  title  of  "  The  Great  Law- 


68  Margaret  Fuller 

suit:  Man  versus  Men;  Woman  versus  Women." 
But  when  the  book  was  published,  some  of  her  friends 
persuaded  her  to  drop  the  cumbersome  legalistic  title 
for  the  one  she  used.  Margaret  agreed  reluctantly  to 
part  with  an  unconscious  but  beloved  souvenir  of  her 
dead  father's  profession. 

The  only  predecessor  of  Margaret's  book  was  Mary 
Wollstonecraft's  Vindication  of  the  Rights  of  Woman, 
published  fifty  years  before.  The  lives  of  these 
two  women  had  many  circumstances  in  common. 
Daughters  of  the  middle  class,  poor-genteel,  elder 
sisters  bearing  the  brunt  of  the  burden  of  a  large 
family,  spinsters  of  thirty-three — the  same  picture 
applies  to  both  when  they  published  their  feminist 
books.  In  Mary's  time,  the  doctrine  of  the  abstract 
rights  of  man  engrossed  the  Paine-Godwin  circle  to 
which  she  belonged,  and  Mary  deduced  from  this  her 
theory  of  woman's  rights.  In  Margaret's  time, 
natural  rights  had  given  way  to  socialism;  Rousseau, 
to  Fourier.  Margaret's  circle  talked  of  "attractive 
industry"  and  the  "liberty  of  law,"  and  Margaret 
applied  these  ideas  to  the  position  of  her  sex.  "  I 
solicit  of  women,"  she  says,  "  that  they  will  lay  it  to 
heart  to  ascertain  what  is  for  them  the  liberty  of  law. 
It  is  for  this,  and  not  for  any,  the  largest,  extension 
of  partial  privileges  that  I  seek.  I  ask  them,  if  inter 
ested  in  these  suggestions,  to  search  their  own  experi- 


A  Woman's  Woman  69 

ences  and  intuitions  for  better,  and  fill  up  with  fit  ma 
terials  the  trenches  that  hedge  them  in."  First  and 
foremost  she  urged  that  women  should  be  allowed  to 
follow  their  natural  bent  in  the  choice  of  an  occupa 
tion,  and  exclaimed  enthusiastically,  "  Let  them  be 
sea-captains,  if  they  will."  This  was  her  application 
of  the  principle  of  attractive  industry  to  the  woman's 
world  in  which  she  lived.  Between  her  Dante,  who 
compared  Beatrice  to  an  Admiral,  and  her  Fourier, 
she  derived  no  small  encouragement  for  such  bold 
images. 

"  I  think  women  need,"  she  wrote,  "  especially  at 
this  juncture,  a  much  greater  range  of  occupation  than 
they  have,  to  rouse  their  latent  powers.  ...  In 
families  that  I  know,  some  little  girls  like  to  saw 
wood,  others  to  use  carpenter's  tools.  Where  these 
tastes  are  indulged,  cheerfulness  and  good  humor  are 
promoted.  .  .  .  Fourier  had  observed  these  wants 
of  women,  as  no  one  can  fail  to  do  who  watches  the 
desires  of  little  girls,  or  knows  the  ennui  that  haunts 
grown  women,  except  where  they  make  to  themselves 
a  serene  little  world  by  art  of  some  kind.  He,  there 
fore,  in  proposing  a  great  variety  of  employments,  in 
manufactures  or  the  care  of  plants  and  animals,  allows 
for  one-third  of  women  as  likely  to  have  a  taste  for 
masculine  pursuits,  one-third  of  men  for  feminine. 
Who  dares  not  observe  the  immediate  glow  and 


70  Margaret  Fuller 

serenity  that  is  diffused  over  the  life  of  women,  before 
restless  or  fretful,  by  engaging  in  gardening,  building, 
or  the  lowest  department  of  art?  Here  is  something 
that  is  not  routine,  something  that  draws  forth  life 
towards  the  infinite." 

To  reassure  those  who  shudder  at  a  world  in  which 
all  women  would  be  converted  into  admirals,  car 
penters,  and  gardeners,  Margaret  goes  on,  "  I  have  no 
doubt,  however,  that  a  large  proportion  of  women 
would  give  themselves  to  the  same  employments  as 
now,  because  there  are  circumstances  that  must  lead 
them.  Mothers  will  delight  to  make  the  nest  soft  and 
warm.  Nature  will  take  care  of  that."  In  another 
essay,  she  urged :  "  As  you  would  not  educate  a  soul 
to  be  an  aristocrat,  so  do  not  to  be  a  woman.  A  gen 
eral  regard  to  her  usual  sphere  is  dictated  in  the 
economy  of  nature.  You  need  never  enforce  these 
provisions  rigorously.  Achilles  had  long  plied  the 
distaff  as  a  princess;  yet,  at  the  first  sight  of  a  sword, 
he  seized  it.  So  with  Woman;  one  hour  of  love  would 
teach  her  more  of  her  proper  relations  than  all  your 
formulas  and  conventions." 

Examining  Margaret's  book  in  the  light  of  present- 
day  feminism,  one  cannot  but  be  impressed  by  the  com 
prehensiveness  and  enduring  character  of  her  views. 
"  As  the  principle  of  liberty  is  better  understood,  and 
more  nobly  interpreted,  a  broader  protest  is  made  in 


A  Woman's  Woman  71 

behalf  of  Woman.  As  men  become  aware  that  few 
men  have  had  a  fair  chance,  they  are  inclined  to  say 
that  no  women  have  had  a  fair  chance."  In  practice, 
she  found,  however,  that  this  opinion  was  not  general 
enough  to  prevent  feminism  from  being  a  dangerous 
trade.  "  It  demands  some  valor,"  she  confessed,  "  to 
lift  one's  head  amidst  the  shower  of  public  squibs, 
private  sneers,  anger,  scorn,  derision,  called  out  by 
the  demand  that  women  should  be  put  on  a  par  with 
their  brethren,  legally  and  politically;  that  they  should 
hold  property  not  by  permission  but  by  right,  and  that 
they  should  take  an  active  part  in  all  great  move 
ments." 

She  taught  that  women  would  have  to  win  their 
own  liberties.  "  I  believe  that,  at  present,  women  are 
the  best  helpers  of  one  another.  Let  them  think;  let 
them  act;  till  they  know  what  they  need.  ...  I 
have  urged  on  woman  independence  of  man;  not  that 
I  do  not  think  the  sexes  mutually  needed  by  one 
another,  but  because  in  woman  this  fact  has  led  to  an 
excessive  devotion,  which  has  cooled  love,  degraded 
marriage,  and  prevented  either  sex  from  being  what 
it  should  be  to  itself  or  the  other.  .  .  .  Man  has 
gone  but  a  little  way;  now  he  is  waiting  to  see  whether 
Woman  can  keep  step  with  him;  but  instead  of  calling 
out,  like  a  good  brother,  '  You  can  do  it,  if  you  only 
think  so ',  or  impersonally,  '  anyone  can  do  what  he 


72  Margaret  Fuller 

tries  to  do ',  he  often  discourages,  with  schoolboy 
brag,  'Girls  can't  do  that;  girls  can't  play  ball.' 
But  let  anyone  defy  their  taunts,  break  through 
and  be  brave  and  secure,  they  rend  the  air  with 
shouts.  .  .  . 

"  Women  are  taught  to  learn  their  rule  from  with 
out,  not  to  unfold  it  from  within.  .  .  .  The  diffi 
culty  is  to  get  them  to  the  point  from  which  they  shall 
naturally  develop  self-respect  and  learn  self-help. 
Once  I  thought  that  men  would  help  to  forward  this 
state  of  things  more  than  I  do  now.  I  saw  so  many 
of  them  wretched  in  the  connections  they  had  formed 
in  weakness  and  vanity.  They  seemed  so  glad  to 
esteem  women  whenever  they  could.  .  .  .  But  early 
I  perceived  that  men  never,  in  any  extreme  of  despair, 
wished  to  be  women.  .  .  .  An  intimate  friend  of 
the  other  sex  said,  in  a  fervent  moment,  that  I  '  de 
served  in  some  star  to  be  a  man/  He  was  much  sur 
prised  when  I  disclosed  my  view  of  my  position  and 
hopes,  when  I  declared  my  faith  that  the  feminine 
side,  the  side  of  love,  of  beauty,  of  holiness,  was  now 
to  have  its  full  chance,  and  that,  if  either  were  better, 
it  was  better  now  to  be  a  woman,  for  even  the  slightest 
achievement  of  good  was  an  especial  work  of  our 
time.  He  smiled  incredulously.  '  She  makes  the 
best  she  can  of  it,'  thought  he.  '  Let  Jews  believe 
the  pride  of  Jewry,  but  I  am  of  the  better  sort,  and 


A  Woman's  Woman  73 

know  better/  .  .  .  This  by  no  means  argues  a  will 
ing  want  of  generosity  toward  woman.  Man  is  as 
generous  toward  her  as  he  knows  how  to  be." 

She  indignantly  protested  against  one  argument 
which  has  not  disappeared  even  in  our  day.  "  Too 
much  is  said  of  women  being  better  educated,  that  they 
may  become  better  companions  and  mothers  for  men. 
.  .  .  The  intellect,  no  more  than  the  sense  of  hear 
ing,  is  to  be  cultivated  merely  that  Woman  may  be  a 
more  valuable  companion  to  Man,  but  because  the 
Power  who  gave  a  power,  by  its  mere  existence 
signifies  that  it  must  be  brought  out  toward  per 
fection."  ..."  Let  it  not  be  said,  wherever  there 
is  energy  of  creative  genius,  '  She  has  a  masculine 
mind  V 

Margaret  thought  that  the  increase  in  the  number 
of  spinsters,  though  regrettable,  might,  after  all,  be 
the  harbinger  of  better  days.  "  In  this  regard  of 
self-dependence,  ...  we  must  hail  as  a  preliminary 
the  increase  of  the  class  contemptuously  designated 
as  '  old  maids '.  We  cannot  wonder  at  the  aversion 
with  which  old  bachelors  and  old  maids  have  been 
regarded.  .  .  .  Those  who  have  a  more  full  ex 
perience  of  the  instincts  have  a  distrust  as  to  whether 
the  unmarried  can  be  thoroughly  human  and  humane.'* 
But,  after  all,  this  state  of  things  she  deemed  to  be  the 
lesser  of  the  two  evils.  "  We  shall  not  decline  celibacy 


74  Margaret  Fuller 

as  the  great  fact  of  the  time.  It  is  one  from  which 
no  vow,  no  arrangement,  can  at  present  save  a  think 
ing  mind.  For  now  the  rowers  are  pausing  on  their 
oars;  they  wait  a  change  before  they  can  pull  to 
gether.  .  .  .  Union  is  only  possible  to  those  who  are 
units/' 

Without  any  help  from  modern  psychology,  Mar 
garet  was  most  intelligently  aware  of  the  criss-crossing 
of  the  sexes  by  character-types  which  are  common  to 
both.  "  There  is  no  wholly  masculine  man,"  she 
wrote,  "  no  purely  feminine  woman.  History  jeers 
at  the  attempts  of  physiologists  to  bind  great  original 
laws  by  the  forms  which  flow  from  them.  They 
make  a  rule;  they  say  from  observation  what  can 
and  cannot  be.  In  vain!  Nature  provides  excep 
tions  to  every  rule.  She  sends  women  to  battle,  and 
sets  Hercules  spinning;  she  enables  women  to  bear 
immense  burdens,  cold,  and  frost;  she  enables  man, 
who  feels  maternal  love,  to  nourish  his  infant  like 
a  mother.  .  .  .  Presently  she  will  make  a  female 
Newton,  and  a  male  Siren.  Man  partakes  of  the 
feminine  in  the  Apollo,  Woman  of  the  masculine  as 
Minerva.  .  .  . 

"  Let  us  be  wise,  and  not  impede  the  soul.  Let 
her  work  as  she  will.  Let  us  have  but  one  creative 
energy,  one  incessant  revelation.  Let  it  take  what 
form  it  will,  and  let  us  not  bind  it  by  the  past  to  man  or 


A  Woman  s  Woman 


woman,  black  or  white.  Jove  sprang  from  Rhea, 
Pallas  from  Jove.  So  let  it  be." 

Margaret  reminds  her  readers  that  women  have 
never  lacked  for  power,  but  it  is  the  power  that 
"  vanity  would  crave  "  rather  than  that  which  "  wis 
dom  would  accept."  "  It  is  not  the  transient  breath 
of  poetic  incense  that  women  want.  .  .  .  It  is  not 
life-long  sway;  it  needs  but  to  become  a  coquette,  a 
shrew,  or  a  good  cook,  to  be  sure  of  that.  It  is  not 
money,  nor  notoriety,  nor  the  badges  of  authority 
which  men  have  appropriated  to  themselves.  If  de 
mands  made  in  their  behalf  lay  stress  on  any  of  these 
particulars,  those  who  make  them  have  not  searched 
deeply  into  the  needs.  ...  Ye  cannot  believe  it, 
men;  but  the  only  reason  why  women  ever  assume 
what  is  more  appropriate  to  you,  is  because  you  pre 
vent  them  from  finding  out  what  is  fit  for  themselves. 
Were  they  free,  were  they  wise,  fully  to  develop  the 
strength  and  beauty  of  Woman,  they  would  never 
wish  to  be  men,  or  manlike." 

Margaret  could  not  forbear  a  few  sarcastic  com 
ments  on  the  subject  of  chivalry  to  women.  "  Men 
are  very  courteous  to  them.  They  praise  them  often  ; 
check  them  seldom.  There  is  chivalry  in  the  feeling 
towards  'the  ladies/  which  gives  them  the  best  seats 
in  the  stage-coach,  frequent  admission,  not  only  to 
lectures  of  all  sorts,  but  to  courts  of  justice,  halls  of 


76  Margaret  Fuller 

legislature,  reform  conventions.  The  newspaper  ed 
itors  *  would  be  better  pleased  that  the  Lady's  Book 
should  be  filled  up  exclusively  by  ladies.  It  would 
then,  indeed,  be  a  true  gem,  worthy  to  be  presented  by 
young  men  to  the  mistress  of  their  affections/  Can 
gallantry  go  further?  " 

Sometimes  she  feels  that  she  must  apologize  for  her 
aggressiveness.  "  If  it  has  been  the  tendency  of  these 
remarks,"  she  says,  "  to  call  Woman  rather  to  the 
Minerva  side,  ...  let  it  be  pardoned !  It  is  love  that 
has  caused  this,  love  for  many  incarcerated  souls  that 
might  be  freed,  could  the  idea  of  religious  self-de 
pendence  be  established  in  them,  could  the  weakening 
habit  of  dependence  on  others  be  broken  up.  ...  I 
would  have  Woman  lay  aside  all  thought,  such  as  she 
habitually  cherishes,  of  being  taught  and  led  by  men. 
.  .  .  Men  do  not  look  on  both  sides,  and  women 
must  leave  off  asking  them  and  being  influenced  by 
them,  but  retire  within  themselves,  and  explore  the 
groundwork  of  life  till  they  find  their  peculiar 
secret.  .  .  . 

"As  to  this  living  so  entirely  for  men,  I  should 
think  when  it  was  proposed  to  women  they  would 
feel,  at  least,  some  spark  of  the  old  spirit  of  races 
allied  to  our  own.  '  If  he  is  to  be  my  bridegroom 
and  lord/  cries  Brunhilda,  *  he  must  first  be  able  to 
pass  through  fire  and  water/  ...  If  women  are 


A  Woman's  Woman  77 

to  be  bond-maids,  let  it  be  to  men  superior  to  women 
in  fortitude,  in  aspiration,  in  moral  power,  in  refined 
sense  of  beauty.  You  who  give  yourselves  *  to  be 
supported '  or  because  '  one  must  love  something/ 
are  they  who  make  the  lot  of  the  sex  such  that  mothers 
are  sad  when  daughters  are  born." 

Margaret  did  not  hesitate  to  criticize  the  institution 
of  marriage  and  discuss  the  evils  of  prostitution.  One 
can  imagine  how  the  lavender  window-panes  of  Boston 
must  have  trembled  with  the  shock  and  how  all  the 
decent  family  people  sitting  tight  behind  the  panes 
must  have  felt  about  this  incorrigible  woman  and 
her  unnecessary  outspokenness.  "  Civilized  Europe 
is  still  in  a  transition  state  about  marriage,"  she  wrote, 
"not  only  in  practice,  but  in  thought.  It  is  idle  to 
speak  of  the  nations  where  polygamy  is  an  institution, 
or  seraglios  a  custom,  while  practices  far  more  de 
basing  haunt,  well-nigh  fill,  every  city  and  every 
town."  She  drew  a  comparison  between  the  Christian 
citizen  and  the  Oriental  polygamist  to  show  the 
superior  morality  of  the  latter.  The  Christian  legis 
lator,  she  says,  declares  that  prostitution  must  be,  it 
is  a  necessary  accompaniment  of  civilization ; — "  he 
will  and  must  buy  the  comforts  and  commercial  ad 
vantages  of  his  London,  Vienna,  Paris,  New  York,  by 
conniving  at  the  moral  death,  the  damnation,  so  far 
as  the  action  of  society  can  insure  it,  of  thousands 


78  Margaret  Fuller 

of  women  for  each  splendid  metropolis."  But  the 
Oriental,  who  had  several  wives  and  many  hand 
maidens,  she  considered,  "  did  not  wrong  according 
to  his  light.  What  he  did,  he  might  publish  it  to  God 
and  man;  it  was  not  a  wicked  secret  that  hid  in  vile 
lurking-places  and  dens.  .  .  .  These  women  were 
not  lost,  not  polluted  in  their  own  eyes,  nor  those  of 
others."  She  denounced  the  marriage  de  convenance, 
which  prevailed  in  her  day,  as  little  better  than  the 
Turkish  slave-trade,  though  the  Turkish  slave,  in  that 
her  situation  was  not  "  in  defiance  of  an  acknowl 
edged  law  of  right,"  was  at  least  to  this  extent  less 
degraded  than  the  fashionable  debutante.  We  find 
her  always  dwelling  on  this  essential  conflict  in  the 
Christian  view  of  the  erotic  life. 

But  she  was  also  practical.  "  Early  marriages  are 
desirable,"  she  said,  "  but  ...  the  world  is  now  so 
out  of  joint  that  there  are  a  hundred  thousand  chances 
to  one  against  it."  How  was  the  young  man  then 
(not  even  Margaret  was  bold  enough  to  worry  about 
young  women)  to  lead  "a  virtuous  and  happy  life?  " 
Nowadays  when  social  hygiene  lecturers  stump  the 
country  on  this  theme,  and  have  withal  a  neat  pre 
scription  for  the  difficult  achievement,  the  subject  has 
little  novelty  for  us.  But  in  Margaret's  day,  people 
did  not  talk  about  such  things,  and  certainly  no  woman 
except  herself  would  have  had  the  courage.  "  Cold 


A  Woman's  Woman  79 

bathing  and  exercise  will  not  suffice  to  keep  a  life 
pure,"  she  advised  young  men,  "  without  an  inward 
baptism,  and  noble,  exhilarating  employment  for  the 
thoughts  and  passions."  But  in  one  respect,  Margaret 
did  not  entirely  fall  into  line  with  our  most  recent 
social  hygienists.  "Women  are  accustomed  to  be 
told  by  men  that  the  reform  is  to  come  from  them. 
*  You/  say  the  men,  '  must  frown  upon  vice;  you  must 
decline  the  attentions  of  the  corrupt/  .  .  .  This 
seems  to  us  hard.  Men  have,  indeed,  been  for  more 
than  a  hundred  years  rating  women  for  countenancing 
vice.  But  at  the  same  time,  they  have  carefully  hid 
from  them  its  nature,  so  that  the  preference  often 
shown  by  women  for  bad  men  arises  rather  from  a 
confused  idea  that  they  are  bold  and  adventurous, 
acquainted  with  regions  which  women  are  forbidden 
to  explore.  .  .  .  As  to  marriage,  it  has  been  incul 
cated  in  women  for  centuries,  that  men  have  not  only 
stronger  passions  than  they,  but  of  a  sort  that  it 
would  be  shameful  for  them  to  share  or  even  under 
stand."  And  yet,  the  indictment  continues,  "  the 
least  appearance  of  coldness  or  withdrawal,  from 
whatever  cause,  in  the  wife  is  wicked,  because  liable 
to  turn  her  husband's  thoughts  to  illicit  indulgence; 
for  a  man  is  so  constituted  that  he  must  indulge  his 
passions  or  die !  " 

Though  Margaret's  book  did  not  dwell  especially 


80  Margaret  Fuller 

on  political  rights,  she  emphatically  included  them. 
"  Woman  should  have  not  only  equal  power  with 
men,"  she  wrote,  "  for  of  that  omnipotent  nature  will 
never  suffer  her  to  be  defrauded, — but  a  chartered 
power,  too  fully  recognized  to  be  abused.  ...  Man 
should  prove  his  own  freedom  by  making  her  free. 
.  .  .  Let  him  trust  her  entirely,  and  give  her  every 
privilege  already  acquired  for  himself, — elective  fran 
chise,  tenure  of  property,  liberty  to  speak  in  public 
assemblies,  and  so  forth." 

•v  /  Margaret's  little  volume  was  the  first  considered 
statement  of  feminism  in  this  country.  It  did  not, 
as  she  said,  argue  for  this  or  that  particular  privilege, 
but  for  an  all-inclusive  "  woman's  charter."  Its  fame 
spread  rapidly.  Her  brother  Eugene  found  people 
in  New  Orleans  reading  and  discussing  it  and  Jane 
Carlyle  read  it  in  Chelsea.  In  many  respects  it 
was  more  humane,  less  denunciatory,  and  less  Puritan 
in  temper  than  the  Declaration  of  Sentiments,  adopted 
a  few  years  later.  But  Margaret's  spirit  and  her 
breadth  of  view  were  carried  over  by  this  insurgent 
group  which  organized  the  woman's  rights  conven 
tions  of  the  early  '50*5.  Women  told  on  the  platform 
of  how  they  had  read  her  book  and,  as  they  learned 
for  the  first  time  that  there  were  other  women  with 
the  same  feelings  as  themselves,  their  "  incarcerated 
souls  "  had  been  liberated.  We  have  the  story  of 


A  Woman's  Woman  81 

how  Susan  B.  Anthony  went  out  to  Mount  Auburn 
one  Saturday  morning  in  1855  and  wandered  about 
trying  to  find  Margaret  Fuller's  monument  but  had  to 
come  away  without  finding  it, — "  which  she  re 
gretted."  Margaret  was  a  vivid  presence  in  these 
early  years  of  the  woman  movement. 

But  as  time  went  on  and  "  woman's  rights  "  nar 
rowed  down  to  a  strictly  suffrage  basis,  her  name  was 
more  rarely  heard.  There  were  several  reasons  for  this 
neglect.  Margaret's  plea  was  for  the  broadest  possible 
development  of  women,  for  the  realization  of  their 
destiny  as  human  beings.  Her  philosophical  feminism 
became  indigestible  for  those  engaged  in  the  intense 
and  single-minded  propaganda  for  the  ballot.  She 
wanted  elbow-room  and  scope, — claiming  her  emo 
tional  rights  with  the  same  conviction  as  her  economic 
and  political  rights.  In  acting  upon  her  beliefs,  she 
did  not  escape  the  fatal  "  breath  of  scandal "  and  the 
consequent  loss  of  a  one  hundred  per  cent  respect 
ability.  This  made  her  apologists  uneasy  and  there 
fore  prone  to  forget  her.  But  as  long  as  the  gen 
eration  of  women  who  had  known  and  loved  her 
survived,  she  did  not  lack  for  sympathetic  advocates 
with  posterity.  At  last  came  a  time,  however,  when  the 
published  reminiscences  of  her  Transcendental  friends 
formed  the  only  portrait  which  remained.  The  per 
sonality  which  emerged  from  their  memoirs  is  the 


82  Margaret  Fuller 

contradictory  and  pretentious  caricature  which  survives 
under  the  name  of  Margaret  Fuller. 

The  truth  is  that  the  men  who  made  the  book  about 
Margaret  gave  a  better  portrait  of  themselves  in  that 
volume  than  they  did  of  its  subject.  For  instance,  they 
created  a  legend  about  her  having  a  neck  like  a  serpent, 
which  she  "  would  wind  about  and  make  as  serpentine 
as  possible."  Several  of  them  dwelt  upon  this  serpen 
tine  association  with  great  enthusiasm,  and  seemed 
to  think  it  quite  an  original  inspiration.  Woman — 
wisdom — serpent: — it  is  a  combination  to  which  the 
long  road  of  man's  memory  seems  easily  to  lead. 
Horace  Walpole  could  find  no  more  satisfactory  in 
sult  for  Mary  Wollstonecraft  than  to  call  her  "  a 
philosophizing  serpent."  The  conscious  memory  of 
the  Puritan  is  short,  but  his  unconscious  memory 
endureth  forever. 

Over  against  the  voluminous  reminiscences  of  the 
two-volume  Memoirs,  composed  by  her  masculine  con 
temporaries,  so  curiously  lacking  in  any  real  feeling 
for  the  dead  comrade,  one  would  like  to  set  the  few 
friendly  words  of  gentle  Rebecca  Spring,  written  half 
a  century  after  Margaret's  death.  "  For  years  after 
wards,  if  I  went  to  the  seashore,  I  would  dream  of 
Margaret,  always  pleasantly.  In  my  dream,  she  always 
seemed  happy ;  it  may  be  that  the  requiem  of  the  winds 
and  waves  was  the  best  for  her.  She  believed  in  the 


A  Woman's  Woman  83 

higher  education  or  women  and  in  equal  rights  for 
them  as  citizens.  She  would  have  rejoiced  in  the  won 
derful  progress  they  have  made  in  these  things  since 
her  time.  Let  our  sex  never  forget  Margaret  Fuller." 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  TRANSCENDENTALIST 

EARLY  in  Margaret's  Boston  career,  George  Sand 
burst  upon  a  startled  world.  Naturally  Margaret 
followed  her  life  and  works  with  breathless  interest, 
and  envied  the  femme  libre  in  her.  And  because  she 
envied,  she  sometimes  told  herself  that  she  had  some 
thing  which  Sand  had  not,  or  that  Sand  had  also 
failed  where  she  had  failed.  "  George  Sand  smokes, 
wears  male  attire,  wishes  to  be  addressed  as  mon 
•frere"  she  said;  "perhaps,  if  she  found  those  who 
were  as  brothers  indeed  she  would  not  care  whether 
she  were  brother  or  sister."  Evidently  Margaret  was 
rather  complacent  at  that  time  over  her  position  in 
the  Transcendental  fellowship  as  compared  with 
George  Sand's  place  in  her  socialist  circle.  In  the  same 
provincial  spirit,  she  wrote  to  Emerson  that,  so  far 
as  the  real  enigmas  of  life  were  concerned,  "  Sand 
and  her  friends  seem  to  have  solved  [them]  no  better 
than  M.  F.  and  her  friends."  She  was  proud  of  her 
place  among  the  Transcendental sts,  where  she  wielded 
a  lorgnette  very  much  as  George  Sand  used  her  ciga 
rette — to  vindicate  the  intellectual  claims  of  her  sex. 

84 


The  Transcendentalist  85 

But  time  gradually  weaned  her  away  from  the  Trans 
cendental  view  of  life's  enigmas  towards  a  greater 
sympathy  with  George  Sand's;  in  later  years  she 
learned  there  was  a  difference. 

Margaret's  connection  with  this  eminent  New  Eng 
land  group  is  the  part  of  her  life  to  which  we  need 
give  least  attention  here.  It  is  the  part  which  is  best 
known  and  which  has  given  her  her  textbook  fame. 
The  "  American  Literature  "  class,  conning  the  pages 
under  "  Transcendentalism,"  always  finds  Margaret's 
name  written  there  with  that  of  Emerson  and  all  the 
rest.  High  school  classes  nowadays  may  speak  of  these 
people  with  a  pious  regard — they  are  a  sacred  memory 
like  the  Boston  tea-party — but  they  enjoyed  no  such 
respect  from  their  own  contemporaries.  The  opinion 
of  John  Quincy  Adams  was  even  tolerant  by  the 
side  of  the  opinion  of  most.  Adams  explained  their 
origin  in  this  way:  "A  young  man  named  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson,  after  failing  in  the  everyday  occupa 
tions  of  Unitarian  preacher  and  schoolmaster,  starts 
a  new  doctrine  of  Transcendentalism,  declares  all  the 
old  revelations  superannuated  and  worn  out,  and  an 
nounces  the  approach  of  new  revelations  and  prophe 
cies."  This  was  the  voice  of  the  elders,  condemning 
an  upstart  cult,  and  it  was  mild  by  comparison  with 
that  of  the  plain  business  man  of  Boston.  "  You 
know,  we  consider  those  men  insane,"  one  of  them  said 


86  Margaret  Fuller 

to  Margaret.  They  'circulated  stories  about  Emerson 
going  to  a  dinner  party  in  top-boots,  stories  about 
Margaret  as  a  precieuse  and  Alcott  as  a  maniac.  Mar 
garet  was  fully  identified  with  the  group  and  whatever 
ungraceful  notoriety  she  had  not  earned  through  her 
connection  with  the  cause  of  woman's  rights  was  now 
hers  through  her  connection  with  these  Boston 
"  zanies,"  as  one  New  Yorker  politely  called  them. 
The  victims  of  the  caricatures  viewed  their  case  with 
commendable  good  humor.  "  We  are  all  a  lirtle  wild 
here,"  wrote  Emerson  to  Carlyle,  "  with  numberless 
projects  of  social  reform.  Not  a  reading  man  but 
has  a  draft  of  a  new  community  in  his  waistcoat 
pocket.  I  am  gently  mad  myself,  and  am  resolved 
to  live  cleanly.  George  Ripley  is  talking  up  a  colony 
of  agriculturists  and  scholars,  with  whom  he  threatens 
to  take  the  field  and  the  book.  One  man  renounces 
the  use  of  animal  foods;  and  another  of  coin;  and  an 
other  of  domestic  hired  service;  and  another  of  the 
State ;  and  on  the  whole  we  have  a  commendable  share 
of  reason  and  hope."  But  it  was  not  the  kind  of 
reason  and  hope  that  the  "  rooted  capitalists " — as' 
Emerson  called  them — could  share  in  as  making  for 
a  bigger  and  a  better  Boston. 

The  nickname  of  "  Transcendentalist "  stuck  and 
became  ^historical.  It  was  a  vulgarization  of  the  Kan 
tian  term,  but  as  applied  to  this  New  England  group 


The  Transcendentalist  87 

it  meant  practically  nothing  more  than  "  Idealists  ". 
But  by  its  awkward  and  esoteric  form,  it  obscured  a 
great  deal.  It  made  the  movement  seem  like  a  transient 
and  isolated  phenomenon  of  New  England  life  instead 
of  a  part,  as  it  was,  of  the  spiritual  revolution  then 
sweeping  over  Europe.  The  young  man  named  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson  who  announced  the  approach  of  new 
revelations  and  prophecies  did  not  have  to  wait  long 
until  his  announcements  were  thoroughly  vindicated. 
A  further  obscurity  produced  by  the  foreign  poly 
syllable  was  the  simple  fact  that  these  people  were 
liberals  and  socialists  as  the  terms  were  understood 
and  used  in  those  days  when  there  was  scarcely 
a  distinction  between  them.  But  Margaret's  friends 
have  not  been  commemorated  under  these  political 
and  economic  classifications.  Indeed,  the  word 
"  liberal "  has  hardly  existed  in  the  American  lan 
guage  since  the  death  of  Horace  Greeley,  with  whom 
not  only  the  name  but  the  fact  passed  out  of  existence. 

Transcendentalism,  in  brief,  was  a  reaction  against 
Puritan  orthodoxy  in  every  department  of  life, — 
politics,  economics,  religion,  and  education.  Margaret 
Fuller  reacted  more  strongly  in  certain  directions 
than  did  her  fellows;  she  revolted  primarily  against 
the  aesthetic  starvation  and  the  kind  of  devil-worship 
which  stamped  the  Puritan  morality  of  her  ancestors. 

Her  explanation  of   Transcendentalism  was  this: 


Margaret  Fuller 


"  Since  the  Revolution,  there  has  been  little,  in  the 
circumstances  of  this  country,  to  call  out  the  higher 
sentiments.  The  effect  of  continued  prosperity  is 
the  same  on  nations  as  on  individuals — it  leaves  the 
nobler  faculties  undeveloped.  .  .  .  New  England  is 
now  old  enough, — some  there  have  leisure  enough, — to 
look  at  all  this,  and  the  consequence  is  a  violent  re 
action,  in  a  small  minority.  .  .  .  They  see  that  po 
litical  freedom  does  not  necessarily  produce  liberality 
of  mind,  nor  freedom  in  church  institutions,  vital  re 
ligion;  and,  seeing  that  these  changes  cannot  be 
wrought  from  without  inwards,  they  are  trying  to 
quicken  the  soul,  that  they  may  work  from  within  out 
wards.  .  .  .  Man  is  not  made  for  society,  but  society 
is  made  for  man.  No  institution  can  be  good  which 
does  not  tend  to  improve  the  individual.  ...  I  agree 
with  those  who  think  that  no  true  philosophy  will  try 
to  ignore  or  annihilate  the  material  part  of  man,  but 
will  rather  seek  to  put  it  in  its  place  as  servant  and 
minister  to  the  soul."  This  was  Margaret's  version 
of  the  Transcendentalist  faith. 

In  1840,  Mr.  George  Ripley  put  his  project  of  "  field 
and  book  "  into  execution,  and  with  the  assistance  of 
some  friends  established  Brook  Farm  near  Rox- 
bury,  Massachusetts.  Margaret  was  urged  to  become 
a  member  of  the  community,  but  she  could  not  be 
won  for  any  project  which  involved  living  on  a  farm. 


The  Transcendentalist  89 

She  went  there  often  as  a  visitor  but  she  would  not  be 
a  resident.  Mrs.  George  Ripley,  whose  learning  was 
as  prodigious  as  her  own,  could  spend  her  days  con 
tentedly  over  the  ironing-board  in  the  Brook  Farm 
laundry.  But  Margaret  could  not  be  induced  to  join 
them  even  by  the  offer  of  "  brain-work,"  like  teach 
ing.  The  bitterness  of  the  combat  with  her  father 
about  the  Groton  farm,  from  which  she  had  emerged 
as  a  remorseful  victor,  was  probably  the  main  reason 
why  she  would  never  on  any  terms  reside  at  Brook 
Farm.  But  among  all  her  objections  there  was  never 
a  hint  that  she  had  once  tried  farrn-life  and  did  not 
like  it.  Nothing  so  simple.  On  the  contrary,  she 
argued  over  Fourier  upon  whose  theories  and  schemes 
the  place  was  founded.  She  sympathized  with  the 
heroism  which  prompted  the  experiment,  but  "  in 
judgment  she  considered  it  premature."  She  thought 
association  the  great  experiment  of  the  age,  but  still 
only  an  experiment;  to  which  the  others  replied  that 
they  had  no  confidence  in  it  beyond  this.  "  But  they 
seem  to  me  to  have,"  said  Margaret  stubbornly.  She 
did  not  "  agree  with  the  principle  of  paying  for  serv 
ices  by  time,"  but  there  were  Brook  Farmers  them 
selves  who  sided  with  her  on  this  point.  Then  she 
thought  up  another  objection :  "  It  is  a  constellation, 
not  a  phalanx,  to  which  I  would  belong."  Finally,  she 
could  not  subscribe  to  their  system  of  ethics,  for  she 


90  Margaret  Fuller 

did  not  "  believe  in  the  hope  of  excluding  evil,  for  that 
was  a  growth  of  nature  and  one  condition  of  the  de 
velopment  of  good."  And  here  again  she  had  only 
to  turn  to  Fourier  himself  to  find  abundant  support, 
for  her  theory  of  the  instincts  and  passions  was  far 
more  in  accordance  with  his  own  than  were  those  of 
the  actual  Brook  Farmers.  Higginson  said  of  the 
community,  "  There  was  a  singular  moral  purity 
about  it  which  observers  from  the  point  of  view  of 
Paris  or  even  London  have  since  found  a  little  con 
temptible."  Fourier  might  have  been  somewhat 
surprised  himself  at  the  compromise  theory  there 
achieved  between  his  ideas  and  the  most  rigorous  Puri 
tan  standards. 

The  association  of  Margaret  Fuller's  name  with 
that  of  Brook  Farm  rests  chiefly  on  Hawthorne's 
Blithe  dale  Romance,  in  which  he  portrays  the  life 
of  the  place  and  represents  Margaret  as  its  central 
figure.  Margaret's  friends,  who  thought  Zenobia 
an  unflattering  portrait,  based  their  defense  on  a 
simple,  literal  alibi :  as  she  had  never  lived  at  Brook 
Farm,  Zenobia  could  not  have  been  meant  for 
her  by  the  author,  who  really  was  a  resident.  But 
this  was  merely  an  evasion  of  an  uncomfortable  fact. 
One  needs  only  to  read  Hawthorne's  life  and  letters, 
as  published  by  his  son,  to  realize  that  Zenobia  was 
certainly  Hawthorne's  version  of  Margaret  Fuller  and 


The  Transcend  entalist  911 

that  he  had  even  less  complimentary  versions  in  his 
private  note-books  and  journals.  Through  their 
publication,  Hawthorne  has  come  to  be  one  of  the 
chief  contributors  to  Margaret's  fame.  Apparently 
their  actual  acquaintance  was  of  the  slightest;  in  fact 
Hawthorne  was  a  solitary  man  who  held  himself  aloof 
from  the  talkative  Transcendentalists  and  especially 
aloof  from  the  female  of  the  species.  Margaret  was 
merely  an  idea  to  him,  but  withal  a  strangely  engross 
ing  idea.  His  obsessive  interest  in  her  personality  has 
led  to  an  artificial  association  of  their  names  for  which 
Margaret  certainly  was  not  responsible.  Her  atten 
tions  were  all  frankly  focused  on  Mr.  Emerson. 

We  can  only  understand  Hawthorne's  excessive 
antagonism  by  taking  a  look  at  his  own  mental  pat 
terns.  Once  when  invited  to  dine  at  Mr.  Bancroft's 
with  her,  he  wrote  in  his  note-book,  "  Providence 
had  given  me  some  other  business  to  do  for  which 
I  was  very  thankful."  According  to  his  own  remi 
niscences,  he  had  but  recently  escaped  from  the  clutches 
of  a  certain  "nefarious  female,"  very  much  like 
Margaret,  who,  merely  to  gratify  her  own  vanity, 
had  induced  him  to  challenge  a  friend  to  a  duel.  Hap 
pily,  the  duel  was  avoided  by  the  discovery  of  the 
lady's  base  character,  whereupon — says  the  biography 
— "Hawthorne  went  to  Mary  and  crushed  her."  His 
excessive  self-righteousness  and  his  abnormal  fear  of 


92  Margaret  Fuller 

women  were  symptoms  of  a  mental  distress  which 
bordered  on  the  pathological.  When  he  at  last  became 
engaged  in  his  late  thirties,  he  postponed  his  marriage 
for  several  years  on  the  ground  that  the  news  would 
kill  his  mother.  "  While  I  love  you  so  dearly,  ..." 
he  wrote  to  his  fiancee,  "  still  I  have  an  awe  of  you 
that  I  never  felt  for  anybody  else."  A  young  man  in 
this  state  of  mind  naturally  postpones  his  wedding 
day.  His  biography  is  full  of  morbid  symptoms  of 
a  malady  which  grew  upon  him  with  advancing  years 
and  weakened  his  mental  powers  long  before  his  com 
paratively  early  death.  His  violent  repugnance  to  the 
nude  statues  which  he  saw  in  Italy,  his  intemperate 
tirade  against  a  painted  Venus,  and  his  attack  on 
Margaret's  character  written  in  his  note-books  at  this 
time,  all  indicated  a  mental  malaise  which  had  grown 
all  but  unbearable.  Like  many  gentle,  suffering  souls 
he  was  capable  of  the  deepest  malice;  and  his  life-long 
preoccupation  with  the  concepts  of  sin  and  guilt, — 
the  central  theme  of  all  his  novels, — made  a  healthy 
outlook  on  the  facts  of  life  increasingly  impossible. 
His  immoderate  dislike  of  Margaret  is  only  compre 
hensible  as  a  symptom  of  his  hidden  misery,  a  cover 
for  his  fascinated  interest  in  a  Bacchante  type.  Yet 
even  an  amiable  critic  like  Henry  James  took  Haw 
thorne's  antagonism  seriously,  and  recorded  it  as  a 
bad  mark  against  Margaret's  personality.  One  of 


The  Transcend 'entalist  93 

the  most  recent  biographers  of  Hawthorne  justifies  his 
view  of  Margaret  by  declaring  that  "  she  was  a  revo 
lutionary  character,  a  sort  of  female  Garibaldi,  who 
attacked  old  Puritan  traditions  with  a  two-edged 
sword.  She  won  victories  for  liberalism  and  social 
ism,  but  she  left  confusion  behind  her."  The  portrait, 
by  no  means  an  unjust  one,  explains,  as  the  author 
intends  it  to  explain,  why  Hawthorne  did  not  like 
Margaret  Fuller;  but  it  does  not  explain  why,  for  all 
his  distaste,  he  simply  could  not  leave  her  alone.  The 
reason  for  that  lay  deep  within  himself.  No  doubt 
he  received  the  same  sort  of  emotional  satisfaction 
from  vilifying  her  that  his  near  ancestor  had  received 
from  whipping  a  witch  through  the  streets  of  Salem. 
This  complexity  of  feeling  expressed  itself  more  freely 
and  truly  through  his  art,  for  the  wicked  Zenobia 
was  by  no  means  lacking  in  attractiveness  and 
charm. 

As  already  said,  Margaret's  actual  encounters  with 
Hawthorne  appear  to  have  been  few  and  trivial,  and, 
by  her,  entirely  unnoted.  But  his  references  to  them 
magnify  their  importance.  Once  she  wrote  a  note  to 
Hawthorne's  wife,  inquiring  whether  her  newly  mar 
ried  sister  and  brother-in-law  might  come  to  board 
with  the  Hawthornes  at  Concord.  Hawthorne  in 
sisted  on  answering  the  letter  himself,  though  it  had 
been  addressed  to  his  wife,  on  the  chivalrous  pre- 


94  Margaret  Fuller 

text  that  he  wished  the  entire  odium  of  their  refusal 
to  rest  on  his  own  shoulders.  He  then  wrote  her  an 
elaborate  letter  of  many  pages  declining  her  simple  and 
direct  proposal.  One  questions  whether  Margaret 
ever  realized  what  a  tempest  in  a  teapot  she  had 
caused, — a  tempest  whose  reverberations,  moreover, 
could  be  marked  a  whole  generation  afterwards. 
"  Miss  Fuller,  if  she  felt  any  dissatisfaction,"  com 
mented  Mr.  Hawthorne's  son  in  his  chronicle  of  the 
incident,  "  not  thinking  it  advisable  to  express  any, 
and  the  Channings  resigning  themselves  to  finding 
quarters  elsewhere.  But  Miss  Fuller  was  at  this  time 
in  her  apogee/*  [we  are  not  through  with  the  con 
sequences  yet!]  "and  had  to  be  doing  something; 
and,  accordingly,  during  the  ensuing  year,  she  pro 
duced  a  book  in  which  the  never-to-be-exhausted  theme 
of  Woman's  Rights  was  touched  upon." 

This  extraordinary  account  of  the  origin  of  Mar 
garet's  book  suggests  a  solemn  thought :  had  her  will 
to  power  been  satiated  by  persuading  the  Hawthornes 
to  take  in  boarders,  her  Woman  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century  might  never  have  been  written! 

On  still  another  occasion,  Hawthorne  encountered 
Margaret  by  chance  in  the  Concord  woods  and  sat 
down  on  the  grass  to  talk  with  her.  "  An  old  man 
passed  near  us/' — he  wrote,  "  and  smiled  to  see  Mar 
garet  reclining  on  the  ground,  and  me  sitting  by  her 


The  Transcend entallst  95 

side."  One  gathers  from  his  description  of  the  episode 
that  he  was  not  displeased  himself  with  the  situation. 
They  talked  of  a  number  of  things  that  afternoon, — 
among  other  topics,  about  "the  experiences  of  early 
childhood,  whose  influence  remains  upon  the  character 
after  the  recollection  of  them  has  passed  away."  What 
these  two  had  to  say  on  this  fruitful  topic  would  be 
very  much  worth  knowing,  but  the  conversation  was 
not  set  down  by  either  of  them.  Later  on  Mr.  Emer 
son  appeared  and  joined  in  their  conversation.  The 
casual  meeting  stood  out  as  an  event  in  Hawthorne's 
life,  so  much  so  that  even  his  most  recent  biographer 
makes  him  lie  buried  "  on  the  same  hillside  where  he 
and  Emerson  and  Margaret  Fuller  conversed  together 
on  the  summer  afternoon  twenty  years  before."  Even 
in  death  they  were  not  divided. 

Margaret's  rejection  of  the  Brook  Farm  scheme  was 
followed  by  her  eager  acceptance  of  the  editorship  of 
The  Dial.  It  was  a  joint  editorship  with  Emerson, 
who,  like  Margaret,  had  more  enthusiasm  for  a  mag 
azine  than  for  a  farm.  He  was  full  of  projects  for  the 
exchange  of  liberal  thought  through  informal  and  non* 
institutional  channels,  and  always  he  invited  Margaret 
to  share  in  whatever  plans  he  had  afoot.  He  had  not 
found,  for  instance,  that  liberal  thought  was  encour 
aged  by  the  universities,  being  himself  persona  non 
grata  at  Harvard.  "Alcott  and  I  projected  a  whole 


96  Margaret  Fuller 

university  out  of  our  straws/'  he  wrote  to  Margaret, 
and  after  outlining  the  courses,  he  invited  her  to  join 
the  "  puissant  faculty  "  which  would  "  front  the  world 
without  charter,  diploma,  corporation,  or  steward." 
The  university  never  came  off,  but  The  Dial  did ;  that 
is  to  say,  it  came  off  after  a  fashion,  though  it  threat 
ened  to  fall  through  with  every  issue.  Without  Mar 
garet's  executive  talents,  it  certainly  would  not  have 
lasted  as  long  as  it  did.  During  the  first  two  years 
of  the  quarterly,  she  was  editor-in-chief;  and  when 
she  resigned,  Emerson  assumed  the  editorship-in-chief 
for  another  two  years.  Still  Margaret  continued  as 
associate  editor  and  contributor,  and  The  Dial  did 
not  finally  give  up  the  ghost  until  she  left  Boston 
for  New  York.  It  was  succeeded,  in  effect,  by  The 
Harbinger,  published  by  the  Brook  Farm  phalanx 
with  George  Ripley  as  editor.  The  Harbinger,  to 
which  Margaret  was  an  occasional  contributor,  was 
specifically  devoted  to  socialistic  propaganda,  and 
lasted,  like  The  Dial,  for  a  term  of  four  years.  Its 
editor  later  succeeded  to  Margaret  Fuller's  place  as 
literary  critic  of  the  New  York  Tribune. 

The  Dial  was,  from  its  beginning,  chiefly  the  ex 
pression  of  the  personalities  of  Margaret  Fuller  and 
Emerson.  The  initial  number  of  this  journal  of  the 
new  spirit  began  with  a  leader  by  Emerson  and  an 
Essay  on  Critics  by  Margaret.  "  No  one  can  converse 


The  Transcendentalist  97 

much  with  different  classes  of  society  in  New  Eng 
land,"  wrote  Emerson,  "  without  remarking  the  pro 
gress  of  a  revolution.  Those  who  share  in  it  have  no 
external  organization,  no  badge,  no  creed,  no  name. 
.  .  .  It  is  in  every  form  a  protest  against  usage,  and 
a  search  for  principles.  In  all  its  movements,  it  is 
peaceable,  and  in  the  very  lowest  marked  with  a  trium 
phant  success.  ...  It  has  the  step  of  Fate,  and  goes 
on  existing  like  an  oak  or  a  river,  because  it  must." 
Margaret's  essay  which  followed  Emerson's  contained 
her  view  of  a  literary  craft  of  which  she  was,  and  still 
remains,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  representatives 
in  this  country.  "  The  critic  is  beneath  the  maker, 
but  is  his  needed  friend,"  she  wrote.  "  The  critic  is 
not  a  base  caviler,  but  the  younger  brother  of  genius. 
Next  to  invention  is  the  power  of  interpreting  inven 
tion;  next  to  beauty  the  power  of  appreciating  beauty. 
And  of  making  others  appreciate  it;  for  the  universe  is 
a  scale  of  infinite  gradation,  and  below  the  very  high 
est,  every  step  is  explanation  down  to  the  lowest.  .  .  . 
Nature  is  the  literature  and  art  of  the  divine  mind; 
human  literature  and  art  the  criticism  on  that;  and 
they,  too,  find  their  criticism  within  their  own  sphere." 
Real  critics,  she  said,  would  not  write  as  guide-books 
or  expurgatory  indexes  but  as  companions  and 
friends.  "  We  would  live  with  them,  rather  than  be 
taught  by  them  how  to  live ;  we  would  catch  the  conta- 


98  Margaret  Fuller 

tagion  of  their  mental  activity,  rather  than  have  them 
direct  us  how  to  regulate  our  own." 

Margaret  was  to  have  been  paid  two  hundred  dollars 
a  year  for  her  work  as  editor.  But  The  Dial  never 
prospered  sufficiently  to  pay  even  this  one  small  salary. 
How  Margaret  must  have  labored  with  her  unpaid 
contributors  is  not  hard  to  imagine.  "  My  vivacious 
friend,"  as  Emerson  called  her,  had  to  call  up  all  her 
reserves  of  vivacity  to  keep  her  columns  filled. 
"  Henry,  I  adjure  you  in  the  name  of  all  the  Genii, 
Muses,  Pegasus,  Apollo,  Pollio,  Apollyon,"  she  wrote 
to  Henry  Hedge  in  Bangor,  "to  send  me  something 
good  for  this  journal,  before  the  first  of  May.  All 
mortals,  my  friend,  are  slack  and  bare ;  they  wait  to  see 
whether  Hotspur  wins,  before  they  levy  aid  for  as  good 
a  plan  as  ever  was  laid.  I  know  you  are  plagued  and 
it  is  hard  to  write;  just  so  it  is  with  me,  for  I  also  am 
a  father."  Oftener  than  she  liked  Margaret  was 
compelled  to  fill  in  with  her  own  compositions,  for 
she  was  not  over-proud  of  them.  "  In  truth  I  have 
not  much  to  say,"  she  declared,  "  for  since  I  have  had 
leisure  to  look  at  myself,  I  find  that,  so  far  from  being 
an  original  genius,  I  have  not  yet  learned  to  think  to 
any  depth,  and  that  the  utmost  I  have  done  in  life  has 
been  to  form  my  character  to  a  certain  consistency, 
cultivate  my  tastes,  and  learn  to  tell  the  truth  with  a 
little  better  grace  than  I  did  at  first."  There  is  cer- 


The  Transcend  entalist  99 

tainly  very  little  of  the  "  mountainous  me  "  in  this 
sort  of  self-criticism,  of  which  there  are  many  in 
stances  in  Margaret's  diaries. 

The  common  criticism  was  that  The  Dial  was  too 
"  feminine."  Carlyle  protested  irritably  that  the 
journal  was  "  no  stalwart  Yankee  man  with  color  in 
the  cheeks  of  him,  and  a  coat  on  his  back."  It  was 
true  that  the  editor  wore  a  shawl,  and  one  suspects 
that  this  fact  had  something  to  do  with  the  impres 
sion  of  femininity  ascribed  to  the  whole  enterprise. 
Theodore  Parker,  who  was  one  of  the  chief  con 
tributors  and  quite  stalwart  and  masculine,  also 
thought  that  what  The  Dial  needed  was  a  beard.  He 
accordingly  established  a  quarterly  of  his  own,  after 
the  failure  of  The  Dial,  which  undertook  to  give  the 
public  its  beard.  But  he  prospered  no  better  than  his 
predecessor,  his  journal  turning  out — to  quote  Mr. 
Higginson's  little  joke — "  to  be  the  beard  without  The 
Dial" 

The  story  of  The  Dial's  rise  and  fall  is  linked 
with  the  story  of  Emerson's  and  Margaret's  friend 
ship.  Emerson  was  a  man  of  many  friendships ;  hav 
ing  severed  relations  with  Church  and  State,  he  re 
served  his  loyalties  for  individual  affiliations.  His 
classic  friendships  were  with  Carlyle  and  Margaret 
Fuller;  Carlyle  he  had  chosen,  but  Margaret  had 
chosen  him.  After  her  father's  death,  Margaret  re- 


ioo  Margaret  Fuller 

solved  to  have  Emerson  for  her  guide  and  mentor 
and  had  set  out  to  win  him.  "  Margaret,  who  had 
stuffed  me  out  as  a  philosopher  in  her  own  fancy,'* 
reads  Emerson's  account,  "  was  too  intent  on  estab 
lishing  a  good  footing  between  us,  to  omit  any  art  of 
winning."  But  it  was  only  after  a  long  resistance  and 
then  not  very  gracefully  that  he  yielded.  "Of  course, 
it  was  impossible  long  to  hold  out  against  such  urgent 
assault/'  he  remarks.  In  spite  of  this  inauspicious 
beginning,  the  friendship  went  better  later  on. 
Emerson  said  that,  during  an  intimacy  which  lasted 
for  ten  years,  he  never  saw  her  without  surprise  at 
her  new  powers.  He  carefully  preserved  every  letter 
that  she  wrote  him  and  included  her  in  his  various 
schemes.  But  all  the  while  he  feared  her  tempera 
ment,  much  as  Goethe  feared  Beethoven's.  "  Such 
people  pull  down  the  pillars  of  the  temple,"  said 
Goethe  of  Beethoven;  "  I  .  .  .  had  a  feeling  as  if  a 
voice  cried,  Stand  from  under"  said  Emerson  of 
Margaret.  Emerson  feared  for  his  unshakable  calm 
in  the  presence  of  the  ardor  and  abandon  of  his  friend. 
"  It  was  a  war  of  temperaments/'  he  said;  bat  added 
that  "  the  incongruity  never  interrupted  for  a  moment 
the  intercourse,  such  as  it  was,  that  existed  between 
us." 

But  the  ardent  disciple  in  time  became  a  critic,  not 
a  critic  of  details  but  a  questioner  of  the  foundation- 


The  Transcendentalist  ibi 

stone  of  Emerson's  whole  existence.  She  'could  not 
give  her  sanction  to  his  cloistered  life  in  Concord;  for 
herself,  she  told  him,  she  preferred  "  the  animating 
influences  of  Discord."  And  to  a  friend  she  wrote, 
"  What  did  you  mean  by  saying  that  I  had  imbibed 
much  of  his  way  of  thought?  I  do  indeed  feel  his 
life  stealing  gradually  into  mine;  and  I  sometimes 
think  that  my  work  would  have  been  more  simple, 
and  my  unfolding  to  a  temporal  activity  more  rapid 
and  easy,  if  we  had  never  met."  Again  she  wrote, 
"  Leave  him  in  his  cell  affirming  absolute  truth ;  pro 
testing  against  humanity,  if  so  he  appears  to  do;  the 
calm  observer  of  the  courses  of  things."  In  Margaret 
the  force  of  Puritan  tradition  was  fast  wearing  away; 
she  had  hovered  for  long  between  Goethe  and  Emer 
son  and  Goethe  had  in  the  end  prevailed. 

No  doubt  they  rather  liked  their  arguments,  into 
which  they  seemed  to  fall  so  naturally  and  so  irre 
concilably.  To  please  Margaret's  memories,  Emer 
son  had  to  go  on  fighting  the  departed  Timothy's  bat 
tles  over  and  over  again;  and  to  please  Emerson, 
Margaret  had  to  go  on  playing  the  part  of  his  obstruc 
tive  Aunt  Mary  Moody  Emerson.  This  Calvinistic 
maiden  aunt,  who  had  taken  the  place  of  Emerson's 
dead  father,  was  a  woman  of  unusual  force  of  char 
acter,  enormous  learning,  and  great  outspokenness.  It 
is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  Emerson  could  not  forbear 


102  Margaret  Fuller 

getting  back  at  the  tyrannical  "  auntism "  of  his 
Transcendental  colleague  from  time  to  time.  Nor  is 
it  surprising  that  he  could  maintain  his  attitude  of 
resistance  within  a  friendship  which  he  apparently  had 
no  wish  to  break  away  from.  He  wrote  a  character 
portrait  of  his  aunt  after  her  death  which  contained 
some  striking  points  of  similarity  with  his  memoir 
of  Margaret.  Were  the  older  and  the  younger  women 
really  so  much  alike  or  did  he  unconsciously  tend 
to  force  them  both  into  a  single  cherished  mold? 
Probably  he  liked  his  second  maiden  aunt  and  her 
Platonic  attentions  better  than  he  ever  admitted  to 
himself. 

Margaret  abandoned  her  career  of  hermitism  and 
mysticism  in  1843,  and  tried  traveling  instead.  She 
journeyed  by  way  of  the  Great  Lakes  to  Chicago,  and 
spent  the  summer  in  a  survey  of  the  Far  West.  She 
traveled  in  an  ox  wagon  over  the  grassy  plains  of 
Illinois  and  penetrated  into  the  territory  of  Wisconsin. 
The  Indians  still  dwelt  in  scattered  encampments  while 
German  and  Swedish  immigrants  were  daily  disem 
barking  at  the  Chicago  piers.  She  ate  white-fish  in 
Chicago,  weighed  the  Indians'  cause,  and  visited  in 
log-cabin  homes  along  the  Rock  River.  There  is  cer 
tainly  little  suggestion  of  frailty  and  invalidism  in  the 
following  description  of  an  over-night  stop  at  Ross's 
Grove:  "We  ladies  were  to  sleep  in  the  bar-room, 


The  Transcend entalist  103 

from  which  its  drinking  visitors  could  be  ejected  only 
at  a  late  hour.  .  .  .  We  had  also  rather  hard 
couches  (mine  was  the  supper  table)  but  we  Yankees 
born  to  rove,  were  altogether  too  much  fatigued  to 
stand  upon  trifles,  and  slept  as  sweetly  as  we  would 
in  the  '  bigly  bower '  of  any  baroness.  But  I  think 
England  [referring  to  an  English  lady  of  the  party] 
sat  up  all  night,  wrapped  in  her  blanket  shawl,  with 
a  neat  lace  cap  upon  her  head,  so  that  she  would  have 
looked  perfectly  the  lady,  if  anyone  had  come  in. 
.  .  .  She  watched,  as  her  parent  country  watches 
the  seas,  that  nobody  may  do  wrong  in  any  case,  and 
deserved  to  have  met  some  interruption,  she  was  so 
well  prepared." 

Margaret  returned  home  and  described  her  western 
travels  in  a  little  volume  entitled,  Summer  on  the 
Lakes.  The  book  made  but  little  impression  but  it 
had  at  least  one  appreciative  reader  in  Mr.  Horace 
Greeley.  The  West  was  his  hobby,  and  here  was  a 
woman  who  had  caught  the  idea.  "  Wherever  the  hog 
comes,  the  rattlesnake  disappears/'  wrote  Margaret 
with  some  of  Mr.  Greeley's  own  tang.  Mrs.  Greeley 
was  already  an  admirer  of  Margaret's,  having  attended 
the  Conversations  during  her  visits  in  Boston.  It 
was  she  who  set  the  plans  on  foot  for  having  Mar 
garet  on  the  Tribune  staff — and  at  the  same  time  a 
resident  in  the  Greeley  home. 


IO4  Margaret  Fuller 

Margaret  was  delighted  with  the  prospect  of  becom 
ing  a  journalist  in  New  York.  But  Mr.  Emerson  did 
not  approve  of  the  step,  and  retained  his  disapproval 
even  though  the  venture  obviously  turned  out  so  well. 
He  wrote  to  Carlyle  two  years  later,  "  Margaret 
Fuller's  work  as  critic  of  all  new  books,  critic  of  the 
drama,  of  music,  and  good  arts  in  New  York,  has  been 
honorable  to  her.  Still  this  employment  is  not  satis 
factory  to  me."  And  though  Margaret  said  the  cir 
culation  of  the  Tribune  was  50,000,  Emerson  men 
tioned  it  in  this  letter  to  Carlyle  as  but  30,000.  Some 
natural  resentment  may  have  been  felt  over  the  loss 
of  a  maiden  aunt  and  right-hand  man  in  one. 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  JOURNALIST 

THE  New  York  Tribune  was  in  the  fourth  year  of  its 
existence  when  Margaret  Fuller  became  a  member  of 
the  staff.  In  those  days,  Horace  Greeley  was  the 
Tribune  and  the  Tribune  was  Horace  Greeley;  the 
man  and  his  journal  were  one. 

In  all  his  personal  relations,  the  editor  was  amiable 
and  good-natured  to  a  fault,  but  he  was  one  of  the 
most  passionate  political  campaigners  and  election 
warriors  that  American  history  has  produced.  Once 
a  political  antagonist  in  Washington  who  did  not 
know  him  personally,  struck  him  with  a  horsewhip; 
even  rival  editors  were  incensed  by  the  assault  and 
one  of  them  said  that  "  the  fellow  who  would  strike 
Horace  Greeley  would  strike  his  mother."  The 
Tribune  was  like  its  editor,  incessantly  campaigning, 
reforming,  and  crusading  and  yet  exceedingly  popular 
and  prosperous.  Though  Mr.  Greeley  came  of 
Puritan  stock,  he  had  the  saving  graces  of  his  Irish 
blood. 

As  Margaret  was  a  woman's  woman,  Mr.  Greeley 
was  a  man's  man.  His  real  home  was  in  his  news- 

105 


106  Margaret  Fuller 

paper  office  and  his  real  life  was  lived  there  with  his 
host  of  friends.  He  was  the  center  of  a  group  of 
persons  engrossed  with  the  labor  problem  and  the 
social  reforms  of  the  day.  Important  figures  of  this 
circle  were  William  H.  Channing,  the  minister; 
Marcus  Spring,  the  merchant;  Albert  Brisbane,  the 
wealthy  scholar;  and  the  silent  Mr.  McElrath,  who 
was  Mr.  Greeley's  business  partner.  They  all  co 
operated  in  various  ways  with  Mr.  Greeley's  schemes 
for  the  emancipation  of  labor.  William  Channing 
was  a  preacher  and  a  kind  of  social  reformer-at-large. 
He  and  Margaret  Fuller  together  made  a  survey  of 
New  York's  philanthropic  institutions  in  order  that 
Margaret  might  write  up  her  observations  for  the 
Tribune.  Marcus  Spring,  like  Horace  Greeley,  was 
an  ardent  supporter  of  the  North  American  phalanx 
at  Red  Bank,  New  Jersey.  Albert  Brisbane  expounded 
the  ideas  of  Fourier,  the  prophet  of  the  social  revolu 
tion,  on  the  front  page  of  the  Tribune,  and  Margaret 
fell  heir  to  this  space  when  he  left  for  Europe  in 
1845.  Most  important  of  them  all,  perhaps,  was  the 
faithful  Mr.  McElrath  who  kept  the  Tribune's  house 
in  order  and  maintained  a  perfect  organization  in 
spite  of  the  picturesque  and  incorrigible  disorder  of 
the  chief.  "  As  Damon  and  Pythias  are  the  types  of 
perfect  friendship,"  exclaims  Greeley's  biographer, 
"  so  may  Greeley  and  McElrath  be  of  a  perfect  part- 


The  Journalist  107 


nership;  and  we  may  say,  with  a  sigh  at  the  many 
discordant  unions  the  world  presents,  oh!  that  every 
Greeley  could  find  his  McElrath  and  blessed  is  the 
McElrath  that  finds  his  Greeley!"  Mr.  Greeley' s 
coterie  embraced  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men,  until 
life  in  the  editorial  offices  seemed  to  be  one  never- 
ending  stag-party. 

Mrs.  Greeley  apparently  felt  the  need  of  a  friend — 
her  husband  had  so  many.  She  was  often  lonely  and 
dejected  and  there  was  a  lack  of  "  mental  harmony  ", 
— so  Margaret  said, — in  the  domestic  atmosphere. 
Wives  like  Mrs.  Greeley  and  Xantippe  really  have  a 
case,  though  their  genial  and  convivial  husbands 
usually  get  all  the  sympathy.  Mrs.  Greeley  was 
probably  trying  to  find  her  McElrath  when  she 
invited  Margaret  Fuller  to  share  her  home.  Mr. 
Greeley  said  that  he  regarded  Margaret  as  his  wife's 
friend  rather  than  his  own,  and  added  ungraciously 
that  he  could  not  understand  the  adoring  women 
friends  who  flocked  out  to  his  home  to  see  her. 
Perhaps  it  was  but  natural  under  the  circumstances 
that  he  should  look  on  his  wife's  friend  and  her 
numerous  disciples  with  rather  a  critical  and  distrust 
ful  eye.  It  was  too  much  like  having  the  tables  sud 
denly  turned  on  himself.  Margaret's  book  on  the 
woman  question  had  "  made  quite  a  breeze,"  as  Mrs. 
Peabody,  who  kept  a  bookstore  in  Boston,  said  in 


108  Margaret  Fuller 

describing  its  success.  This  fact  must  have  greatly 
increased  the  number  of  Margaret's  visitors  and 
stirred  up  more  interest  in  feminism  within  the 
Greeley  home  than  the  editor  himself  could  com 
fortably  subscribe  to. 

Still  the  business  partnership  between  Margaret  and 
her  chief  was  a  most  successful  one.  Mr.  Greeley 
had  the  profoundest  respect  for  his  literary  critic 
and  considered  her  "the  best  instructed  woman  in 
America;  "  while  Margaret  had  the  highest  regard  for 
the  editor's  great  abilities  and  his  generous  disposi 
tion  as  an  employer.  Mr.  Greeley  knew  more  about 
the  labor  problem  than  any  American  public  man  of 
his  day,  and  Margaret  acquired  a  groundwork  in 
economics  while  she  worked  for  the  Tribune  which 
served  her  well  in  the  European  whirlpool  of  revolu 
tion  later.  The  editor  was  a  hard  beleaguered  man, 
especially  in  the  years  of  Margaret's  association  with 
his  paper,  and  she  was  immovably  on  his  side  against 
the  ruling  classes.  But  at  home,  she  was  on  the  side 
of  Mrs.  Greeley. 

Horace  Greeley  declared  himself  the  friend  of  the 
woman  movement.  And  so  he  was,  but  with  impor 
tant  reservations.  The  kind  of  woman  movement 
which  he  favored  was  purely  for  political  and  eco 
nomic  rights.  It  would  never  seek  to  reform  the  in 
stitution  of  marriage  in  any  way;  it  would  abolish 


The  Journalist  109 


divorce  entirely;  and  it  would  never  push  its  claim 
for  suffrage  at  a  time  which  the  editor  of  the  Tribune 
did  not  think  propitious.  But  this  was  not  the  kind 
of  woman  movement  which  Margaret  Fuller  believed 
in  and  wrote  about  and  Susan  B.  Anthony  fought  for. 
There  were  inevitable  clashes  of  opinion  between 
these  women  and  a  man  who  believed  in  the  Episcopal 
marriage  ceremony  and  the  Roman  Catholic  attitude 
towards  divorce.  Though  his  religious  views  were  so 
liberal  that  he  belonged  to  a  Universalist  church,  de 
fended  Tom  Paine  in  his  newspaper,  and  was  de 
nounced  as  an  atheist  by  his  enemies,  he  would  be 
married  by  the  Episcopal  ceremony  and  no  other  and 
believed  that  the  marriage  tie  should  be  absolutely 
indissoluble.  Mrs.  Greeley  had  a  tendency  to  agree 
with  Margaret  Fuller,  and  later  with  Susan  B. 
Anthony,  rather  than  with  her  husband,  on  questions 
concerning  women,  which  naturally  did  not  increase 
her  husband's  sympathy  with  these  rival  influences. 

His  own  account  of  his  behavior  as  a  host  shows 
that  Margaret  must  have  been  rather  broad-minded  to 
keep  their  relations  as  friendly  as  they  were.  He  lec 
tured  her  on  her  tea-drinking  habits,  telling  her  that 
this  was  the  source  of  her  ill-health  and  she  should 
give  it  up  at  once.  Also  at  every  opportunity  he 
pointed  out  her  personal  inconsistencies  as  a  champion 
of  the  emancipated  woman.  If  she  demanded,  as  she 


[IIO  Margaret  Fuller 

did,  free  access  to  the  professions,  politics,  and  em 
ployments  of  the  rougher  sex,  he  said,  she  should  not 
accept  their  protection  as  escorts.  He  also  thought 
that,  as  a  strong-minded  woman,  she  should  not  give 
in  so  much  to  her  headaches  and  "  spinal  affliction  " 
and  boasted  that  he  could  write  ten  columns  to  her 
one  a  day.  In  the  old  Dial  days,  Emerson  had  re 
garded  her  as  a  marvel  of  speed.  Lucky  for  Mr. 
Emerson,  he  did  not  work  for  Mr.  Greeley.  And  did 
not  Mr.  Greeley  himself  have  boils,  was  he  not  covered 
with  them  like  Job,  and  did  he  not  do  a  day's  work 
every  day  regardless  of  his  sufferings?  Incidentally, 
it  does  not  appear  that  Margaret  failed  to  live  up  to 
her  contract  of  three  articles  a  week,  but  what  was 
this  to  the  hero  of  ten  thousand  paragraphs?  The 
point  was  that  she  could  not  keep  up  with  him,  and 
this  was  a  point  which  Mr.  Greeley  never  failed  to 
make.  He  cared  for  nothing  in  life  so  much  as  just 
winning;  when  a  little  boy,  he  cried  if  he  lost  the 
spelling-match  and  when  he  made  the  race  for  presi 
dent,  he  could  not  survive  the  tragedy  of  his  defeat. 
All  this  was  because  Horace  Greeley  had  to  make  up 
for  a  father  who  had  been  a  failure  in  life.  The 
paternal  Greeley  had  been  an  unsuccessful  farmer  and 
frontiersman,  with  a  wife  who  could  work  as  hard 
and  drink  as  hard  as  he  could  himself.  The  mother 
of  Horace  Greeley,  one  learns  from  his  biography, 


The  Journalist  in 


"  had  the  strength  of  a  man  without  his  coarseness," 
and  she  could  out-rake  any  man  in  the  town  and  load 
the  hay-wagons  as  fast  as  her  husband.  The  son  of 
this  Amazon  refused  to  pay  tribute  to  Margaret's 
prowess  as  an  intellectual  worker,  however  much 
others  might  be  impressed  by  it. 

During  her  career  as  a  journalist  in  New  York, — 
her  business  life,  as  she  called  it, — Margaret  ac 
complished  two  definite  things.  She  established  her 
self  as  a  leading  American  literary  critic.  The  Cam 
bridge  History  of  American  Literature  describes  her  as 
"  one  of  the  best-equipped,  most  sympathetic,  and 
genuinely  philosophical  critics  produced  in  America 
prior  to  1850."  The  second  achievement  of  her  New 
York  career  was  a  love  affair. 

This  innocent  and  bourgeois  romance  was  sedulously 
concealed  for  a  long  time  by  means  of  outright  lying 
on  the  part  of  gallant  Christian  gentlemen.  The 
painful,  the  unmentionable  fact  was  that  Margaret's 
hopes  were  disappointed ;  she  was  jilted,  in  short.  But 
after  fifty  years  or  more  the  whole  story  came  out 
through  the  publication  of  the  Love  Letters  of  Mar 
garet  Fuller  with  a  preface  by  the  faithless  lover  him 
self.  The  preface,  dated  1873,  shows  that  he  prepared 
the  letters  for  publication  thirty  years  before  they 
actually  appeared;  but  for  some  reason,  probably  the 
interposition  of  a  hand  much  stronger  than  his  own, 


112  Margaret  Fuller 

the  letters  remained  unpublished  until  1903.  The  poor 
man  never  saw  this  handsome  tribute  to  himself  in 
print.  His  reason  for  publishing  Margaret's  letters, 
he  said,  was  to  show  "that  great  and  gifted  as  she 
was  as  a  writer,  she  was  no  less  so  in  the  soft  and 
tender  emotions  of  a  true  woman's  heart." 

The  Greeley  homestead,  on  the  bank  of  the  East 
River  and  at  the  foot  of  what  is  now  Forty-ninth 
Street,  was  a  favorable  background  for  a  summer 
romance.  The  place  had  been  a  summer  residence, 
but  Mr.  Greeley  dubbed  it  "  The  Farm  "  as  he  always 
insisted  on  viewing  himself  as  a  farmer.  It  was 
charmingly  sequestered ;  a  long  lane  connected  it  with 
the  hourly  stage  on  Third  Avenue,  while  the  windows 
overlooked,  in  the  opposite  direction,  a  scene  of  wide 
waters  and  moving  sails.  While  Mr.  Greeley  cherished 
a  day-dream  of  being  a  farmer,  Margaret  cherished 
one  of  going  to  sea,  and  both  of  them  were  delighted 
with  the  new  home.  The  housekeeping  went  on  "  in 
Castle  Rackrent  style,"  for,  unfortunately,  the  orderly 
sway  of  Mr.  McElrath  did  not  extend  as  far  as  The 
Farm.  Margaret  soon  found,  she  said,  that  "  things 
would  not  stay  put"  and  gave  up  trying  to  better 
them.  But  there  were  eight  acres  of  wooded  grounds, 
a  dell  with  falling  water,  paths  that  wound  through 
myrtle  and  white  cherry,  and  waves  murmuring  in 
the  moonlight  at  the  base  of  the  rocks.  It  was  an 


The  Journalist  113 


ideal  place  in  which  to   fall  in  love  in  the  spring 
time. 

Mr.  James  Nathan  was  a  Jew  from  Hamburg,  who 
was  engaged  in  the  banking  business  in  Wall  Street. 
When  he  was  about  forty-five,  he  changed  his  name 
to  Gotendorf,  the  name  of  a  place  in  Holstein  owned 
by  his  father.  He  says  that  he  did  this  by  Horace 
Greeley' s  advice,  who  also  no  doubt  facilitated  the  act 
of  Congress  by  which  the  change  of  name  was  made 
possible.  Mr.  Greeley  would  have  taken  any  amount 
of  trouble  on  behalf  of  a  man  who  strove,  if  only 
symbolically,  to  regain  the  parental  homestead.  He 
himself  spent  a  lifetime  regaining  the  lost  paradise  of 
a  Vermont  farm  which  was  wrested  from  his  father 
for  debt  when  Horace  was  nine  years  old.  "  We  de 
vote  most  of  the  excess  of  energy  of  maturity  work 
ing  out  the  wishes  of  childhood,"  says  a  modern 
psychologist,  so  that  perhaps  Mr.  Greeley's  course 
should  not  be  looked  upon  as  very  exceptional,  after 
all.  Certainly  he  spent  a  great  deal  of  his  mature 
energies  in  the  vicarious  working  out  of  those  same 
childish  wishes. 

When  Mr.  Gotendorf  visited  the  Greeley  Farm 
he  was  still  Mr.  Nathan.  About  the  same  age  as  Mar 
garet,  he  was  a  gentle,  blue-eyed  dreamer,  who  played 
the  guitar,  wrote  verses,  and  chafed  at  the  uncon 
genial  life  of  a  business  man.  "  I  have  long  had  a 


114  Margaret  Fuller 

presentiment/'  Margaret  wrote  to  him,  "  that  I  should 
meet — nearly — one  of  your  race,  who  would  show  me 
how  the  sun  of  today  shines  upon  the  ancient  Temple 
— but  I  did  not  expect  so  gentle  and  civilized  an  ap 
parition  and  with  blue  eyes!"  Mr.  James  Nathan 
was  not  by  temperament  a  man  of  action  and  was  dis 
contented  with  the  lot  which  a  masculine  nature  is 
supposed  to  crave ;  while  Margaret,  being  emphatically 
a  woman  of  action,  had  always  struggled  against  the 
pressure  of  social  customs  which  refused  her  any  out 
let  for  her  energies.  "We  parted  in  the  lane  and 
went  our  opposite  ways/'  said  one  of  Margaret's  let 
ters  to  her  lover,  "  and  I  thought :  my  brother  wishes 
to  make  his  existence  more  poetic,  I  need  mine  should 
be  more  deeply  real ;  must  we  go  opposite  ways  in  the 
same  road?  "  More  than  once  in  her  letters  she  refers 
to  the  "  feminine  sweetness  and  sensibility  "  of  her 
lover's  disposition. 

Mr.  Nathan  suddenly  departed  from  New  York  in 
June,  1845.  He  left  his  dog  and  his  guitar  in  Mar 
garet's  care,  and  set  forth  upon  long  journeys  through 
Europe  and  Palestine.  His  leaving  has  the  air  of  a 
rather  ungallant  flight.  He  continued  to  send  back 
travel  articles  to  Margaret  for  publication  in  the 
Tribune,  but  his  personal  letters  to  her  dwindled 
away.  In  the  meantime  Margaret's  plans  for  a  Eu 
ropean  trip  had  rapidly  matured.  She  wrote  to  Mr. 


The  Journalist  115 


Nathan,  who  had  now  retired  to  Hamburg  and  the 
protection  of  his  mother,  that  she  would  be  in  London 
on  September  the  first  and  hoped  to  see  him  then. 
Furthermore,  her  party  would  go  from  London  to 
Hamburg  along  the  usual  route.  One  can  imagine  the 
sensations  of  the  unhappy  Mr.  Nathan,  who  had  be 
come  engaged  to  be  married  in  the  meantime  but  had 
forgotten  to  mention  it  when  he  wrote  to  Margaret 
and  asked  her  to  find  a  publisher  for  his  book  of  travels. 
But  the  moment  for  candor  had  come.  He  rose  to 
the  heights  of  a  man  of  action  and  dispatched  a  letter 
to  Margaret  in  England  which  had  the  desired  effect. 
It  completely  changed  her  itinerary.  Mr.  Nathan 
describes  the  episode  in  his  preface  twenty  years  after, 
— "  She,  in  London,  found  letters,  and  then  went  to 
Rome  and  to  Heaven,  but  the  mutually  much  longed 
for  meeting  is  yet  to  be,  somewhere,  somehow ! " 

The  letters  which  Margaret  found  in  London  are 
referred  to  in  her  Journal:  "From  ist  June,  1845,  to 
ist  Sept.,  1846,  a  mighty  change  has  taken  place,  I 
ween.  I  understand  more  and  more  the  character  of 
the  tribes.  I  shall  write  a  sketch  of  it  and  turn  the 
whole  to  account  in  a  literary  way,  since  the  affections 
and  ideal  hopes  are  so  unproductive.  I  care  not.  I 
am  resolved  to  take  such  disappointments  more  lightly 
than  I  have." 

A  few  days  later,  she  was  lost  on  a  lonely  mountain- 


Ii6  Margaret  Fuller 

top  in  Scotland,  where  she  spent  a  night  of  dangerous 
exposure.  She  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Tribune  describ 
ing  her  vigil,  telling  how  she  kept  herself  in  motion 
the  whole  night  long,  while  death  seemed  to  woo  her 
in  visionary  shapes.  "  Floating  slowly  and  gracefully, 
their  white  robes  would  unfurl  from  the  great  body 
of  mist  in  which  they  had  been  engaged,  and  come 
upon  me  with  a  kiss  pervasively  cold  as  that  of  death. 
What  they  might  have  told  me,  who  knows,  if  I  had 
but  resigned  myself  more  passively  to  that  cold,  spirit- 
like  breathing!  "  The  temptation  to  resign  herself — 
though  perhaps  unconscious — was  evidently  strong 
upon  her.  But  as  it  turned  out,  her  uncomfortable 
night  had  the  happy  effect  of  curing  the  worst  pangs 
of  her  disappointment,  for  she  apparently  forgot  the 
faithless  Mr.  Nathan  very  soon.  It  was  a  desperate 
remedy  like  that  of  poor  Mary  Wollstonecraft  whose 
plunge  into  the  cold  waters  of  the  Thames  seemed  to 
do  more  than  anything  else  to  cure  her  of  her  hopeless 
love  for  the  elusive  Gilbert  Imlay.  It  was  true  of  both 
these  ardent  women  that  they  were  capable  of  consol 
ing  their  orphaned  affections  by  a  rather  sudden  and 
complete  transference  to  another  and  a  different  object. 
But  in  spite  of  Mr.  Nathan's  heart-breaking  deser 
tion,  he  and  his  dog  and  his  guitar  probably  helped 
to  make  Margaret  into  a  better  woman  and  a  better 
critic.  When  she  was  in  Italy,  she  was  said  to  be 


The  Journalist  117 


quite  humanized;  and  no  doubt  the  emotional,  blue- 
eyed  foreigner  was  a  happy  antidote  for  the  trans 
cendental  life  just  left  behind  in  Boston.  At  any  rate, 
her  critical  work  on  the  Tribune  shows  a  mind  much 
more  tempered  to  reality  and  purged  of  fantasy  than 
the  extracts  in  the  Memoirs  would  lead  one  to  expect. 
She  was  moving  at  last  in  a  world  of  fact. 

The  Tribune  was  noted  for  the  excellence  and  free 
dom  of  its  reviews.  Margaret  had  the  task  of  re 
viewing  the  works  of  Carlyle,  Browning,  Elizabeth 
Barrett,  and  Tennyson  as  they  first  came  from  the 
press;  while  volumes  by  American  contemporaries 
like  Longfellow,  Poe,  and  Lowell  fell  into  her  hands 
for  judgment  and  appraisal.  Her  reviews  were  col 
lected  and  published  in  a  small  volume  entitled  Papers 
on  Literature  and  Art,  which  was  read  with  apprecia 
tion  in  England  and  led  to  the  offer  of  journalistic 
opportunities  in  London.  As  her  previous  books  had 
promoted  her  transfer  to  New  York,  her  critical 
papers  would  have  given  her  a  foothold  among  London 
journalists,  had  she  been  eager  to  gain  one.  Her 
strange  indifference  to  these  English  offers  was  a  part 
of  her  general  lack  of  sympathy  for  England.  She 
turned  her  back  on  London  where  she  might  perhaps 
have  earned  her  bread  with  considerable  distinction 
and  embraced  a  life  of  pauperism  in  her  beloved 
Italy. 


n8  Margaret  Fuller 

A  glance  through  Margaret's  critical  papers  shows 
the  strong,  resonant  fiber  of  her  mind  and  an  energy 
of  character  which  is  usually  called  masculine.  She 
had  little  mercy  for  sentimentalisms  of  any  kind.  To 
a  lady  who  over-modestly  apologized  for  publishing, 
Margaret  recommended  that  she  "  leave  such  affecta 
tions  to  her  aunts ;  they  were  the  fashion  of  their  day." 
"  Literature  has  become  not  merely  an  archive  for  the 
preservation  of  great  thoughts,  but  a  means  of  general 
communication  between  all  classes  of  minds,  and  all 
grades  of  culture.  There  needs  be  no  great  fuss  about 
publishing  or  not  publishing.  Those  who  forbear  may 
rather  be  considered  the  vain  ones,  who  wish  to  be 
distinguished  among  the  crowd."  In  a  review  of  the 
biography  of  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  she  analyzed  him 
as  a  day-dreamer.  "  A  man  who  means  to  think  and 
write  a  great  deal,  must,  after  six  and  twenty,  learn  to 
read  with  his  fingers."  And  she  concluded  from  the 
character  of  this  man  that  "man  may  escape  from 
every  foe  and  every  difficulty,  except  what  are  within — 
himself."  Reviewing  Emerson,  she  says,  "  Here  is, 
undoubtedly,  the  man  of  ideas ;  but  we  want  the  ideal 
man  also — want  the  heart  and  genius  of  human  life  to 
interpret  it.  ...  We  doubt  this  friend  raised  him 
self  too  early  to  the  perpendicular,  and  did  not  lie 
along  the  ground  long  enough  to  hear  the  whispers 
of  our  parent  life.  We  would  wish  he  might  be 


The  Journalist  1119 


thrown  by  conflicts  on  the  lap  of  mother  earth,  to  see 
if  he  would  not  rise  again  with  added  powers."  She 
had  a  very  practical  view  of  the  uses  of  biography. 
"  Both  as  physiological  and  psychical  histories,  they 
are  full  of  instruction.  .  .  .  Let  the  physician  com 
pare  the  furies  of  Alfieri  with  the  silent  rages  of 
Byron,  and  give  the  mother  and  pedagogue  the  light 
in  which  they  are  now  wholly  wanting,  showing  how 
to  treat  such  noble  plants  in  the  early  stages  of 
growth." 

Reviewing  American  literature  in  those  days,  when 
it  was  still  so  young  and  sensitive  and  a  narrow 
patriotism  was  ever  on  the  defensive,  was  a  dangerous 
trade.  Horace  Greeley  had  found  it  so  and  Margaret 
also  won  her  scars  as  a  critic.  On  the  whole  Mar 
garet's  punishment  was  more  severe.  When  Greeley 
was  sued  for  libel  by  Fenimore  Cooper  and  condemned 
to  pay  the  author  damages,  the  irrepressible  editor  at 
least  enjoyed  the  comedy.  "  Fenimore  shall  have  his 
$200,"  he  assured  the  public;  "  we  are  glad  to  do  any 
thing  for  one  of  the  most  creditable  (of  old)  of  our 
authors."  This  famous  suit  had  taken  place  but  a 
short  while  before  Margaret  joined  the  Tribune  staff. 
When  Mr.  Greeley  gave  into  her  hands  the  full  critical 
sway  of  the  most  influential  newspaper  in  America, 
he  resigned  a  dangerous  post  which  required  courage 
as  well  as  judgment  in  the  holder.  But  Margaret  was 


I2O  Margaret  Fuller 

as  honest  as  Mr.  Greeley  himself  and  had  no  more 
respect  for  the  ruling  classes;  she  was  therefore  as 
much  as  he  bound  to  commit  Use  majeste  sooner  or 
later.  One  day  Mr.  Greeley  brought  home  a  new 
volume  by  Longfellow  for  her  to  review.  Margaret 
tried  to  put  it  off  on  the  editor,  saying  that  her  view 
of  poetry  was  so  very  different  from  that  of  Mr. 
Longfellow,  who  had  grown  by  this  time  to  be  the 
most  important  American  poet.  Mr.  Greeley  at  first 
consented  to  write  the  review  himself,  but  then  he  said 
he  had  no  time  and  Margaret  had  to  write  it  after 
all.  It  is  an  easy  guess  that  if  he  had  been  an  admirer 
of  Longfellow's  he  would  have  found  time  to  write 
the  more  favorable  criticism.  His  opinion  probably 
differed  but  little  from  Margaret's,  for  Mr.  Hig- 
ginson  tells  us  that  Margaret's  opinion  of  Longfellow 
and  of  Lowell  as  well,  was  commonly  held  among  the 
Transcendentalists  and  was  not  merely  a  personal 
prejudice  of  hers. 

"  When  we  see  a  person  of  moderate  powers,"  she 
wrote,  "  receive  honors  which  should  be  reserved  for 
the  highest,  we  feel  somewhat  like  assailing  him  and 
taking  from  him  the  crown  which  should  be  reserved 
for  grander  brows.  And  yet  this  is,  perhaps,  ungen 
erous.  .  .  .  He  [Longfellow]  has  no  style  of  his 
own,  growing  out  of  his  own  experiences  and  observa 
tions  of  nature.  Nature  with  him,  whether  human 


The  Journalist  121 


or  external,  is  always  seen  through  the  windows  of 
literature.  .  .  .  This  want  of  the  free  breath  of 
nature,  this  perpetual  borrowing  of  imagery,  this  ex 
cessive,  because  superficial,  culture  which  lie  has  de 
rived  from  an  acquaintance  with  the  elegant  literature 
of  many  nations  and  men,  out  of  proportion  to  the 
experience  of  life  within  himself,  prevent  Mr.  Long 
fellow's  verses  from  ever  being  a  true  refreshment  to 
ourselves." 

But  this  was  not  the  whole  of  her  offending.  She 
thought  Lowell's  work  of  less  worth  than  Long 
fellow's.  "  We  cannot  say  as  much  for  Lowell,  who, 
we  must  declare  it,  though  to  the  grief  of  some  friends 
and  the  disgust  of  more,  is  absolutely  wanting  in  the 
true  spirit  and  tone  of  poesy.  His  interest  in  the 
moral  questions  of  the  day  has  supplied  the  want  of 
vitality  in  himself;  his  great  facility  at  versification 
has  enabled  him  to  fill  the  ear  with  a  copious  stream 
of  pleasant  sound.  But  his  verse  is  stereotyped;  his 
thought  sounds  no  depth,  and  posterity  will  not  re 
member  him." 

Longfellow,  famous  for  his  amiability,  passed  over 
the  episode  in  silence  and  vindicated  his  reputation 
for  a  sweet  temper.  But  Lowell  pursued  Margaret  in 
public  and  private  with  bitter  reprisals.  He  lam 
pooned  her  in  his  Fable  for  Critics  as  Miranda  with 
a  ferocity  which  certainly  should  have  relieved  his 


'122  Margaret  Fuller 

feelings  and  wiped  out  the  score.  But  apparently  his 
resentment  was  still  unappeased,  and  he  continued  to 
pour  it  out  in  his  private  correspondence.  Writing  to 
William  Story  in  Rome,  he  devotes  most  of  his  letter 
to  Margaret.  "  I  have  it  on  good  authority/' — he 
begins  a  long-drawn  joke,  "  that  the  Austrian  govern 
ment  has  its  eye  on  Miss  F.  It  would  be  a  pity  to 
have  so  much  worth  and  genius  shut  up  for  life  in 
Spielberg.  Her  beauty  might  perhaps  save  her.  Pio 
Nono  also  regards  her  with  a  naturally  jealous  eye, 
fearing  that  the  college  of  cardinals  may  make  her  the 
successor  of  Pope  Joan."  In  this  strain,  the  joke  con 
tinues  and  recurs  throughout  the  letter  until  one  quite 
agrees  with  Henry  James's  comment, — that  Lowell's 
absorption  in  his  joke  is  rather  "  a  significant  mark 
for  Miss  F." 

When  Margaret  went  to  Europe,  her  connection 
with  the  Tribune  remained  unbroken.  Her  letters 
appeared  on  the  front  page  of  the  newspaper,  for  she 
wrote  as  a  foreign  correspondent.  In  the  meantime, 
soon  after  her  departure,  an  important  change  had 
taken  place  in  the  editorial  policy.  Mr.  Greeley  had 
eliminated  the  theories  of  Fourier  (at  least  under  that 
name)  from  the  columns  of  his  paper.  It  had  hap 
pened  in  this  way. 

Mr.  Greeley  had  challenged  Mr.  H.  J.  Raymond  of 
the  Courier  and  Enquirer  to  a  debate  on  socialism  and 


The  Journalist  123 


Fourierism,  and  Mr.  Raymond  had  accepted.  This 
was  one  of  the  occasions  when  Mr.  Greeley's  passion 
for  debates  and  contests  was  his  undoing.  As  long  as 
he  could  keep  the  argument  on  property  and  poverty, 
capital  and  labor,  Mr.  Greeley  was  in  his  element,  hit 
ting  hard  and  scoring  vigorously.  But  Mr.  Raymond, 
who  was  astute  and  a  good  Presbyterian,  kept  shift 
ing  the  theme  to  marriage  and  family  life  in  spite  of 
his  adversary's  efforts  to  stick  to  capital  and  labor. 
Mr.  Raymond  quoted  shocking  things  from  Fourier, 
who  had  clearly  never  had  the  advantages  of  a  New 
England  education  and  who  held  that  the  passions 
are  good  in  themselves, — that  evil  flows  only  from 
their  repression  or  subversion.  Poor  Mr.  Greeley 
hastened  to  "  deny  with  disgust  and  indignation  that 
there  was  in  socialism,  as  American  socialists  under 
stand  and  teach  it,  any  provision  or  license  for  the 
gratification  of  criminal  passions  or  unlawful  desires." 
Mr.  Raymond  pursued  his  advantage  and  wrote 
solemn  warnings  against  a  social  scheme  which  was 
in  favor  of  "  Bacchantes,  Aspasias,  and  Bayarderes  " 
and  declared  that  the  Tribune,  perhaps  unknowingly, 
was  helping  to  introduce  such  horrors  into  our  midst. 
All  of  Mr.  Greeley's  protestations  could  not  wipe  out 
the  stain  thus  cast  upon  his  economic  prophet,  whose 
name  was  henceforth  associated  in  the  public  mind 
with  sexual  immorality.  The  Tribune  no  longer 


'124'  Margaret  Fuller 

dared  to  advocate  even  the  economics  of  Fourier.  Mr. 
Raymond  had  destroyed  the  menace.  He  was  victor 
— and  on  this  rock  he  founded  the  New  York  Times. 
Now  there  was  no  one  who  had  less  desire  than  Mr. 
Greeley  to  stand  up  as  the  defender  of  "  Bacchantes, 
Aspasias,  and  Bayarderes,"  but  fate  and  Mr.  Ray 
mond  combined  to  force  him  into  a  position  which  his 
very  soul  repudiated.  After  the  debate  was  over,  and 
while  Mr.  Greeley  was  still  trying  to  pretend  to  him 
self  that  he  had  not  lost  it,  there  came  a  stagger 
ing  piece  of  news  from  Italy.  It  was  reported  that 
the  lady  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Tribune  had 
entered  upon  a  sort  of  Fourieristic  marriage  in  Rome. 
The  awful  consequences  of  the  socialism  of  the 
Tribune  stood  revealed. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
CONTACTS 

T™  friends  with  whom  Margaret  finally  went  to 
Europe  were  Marcus  and  Rebecca  Spring  and  their 
little  boy  Edward.  The  Springs  were  apparently 
fairy  god-parents  to  many  idealistic  protegees.  They 
rescued  Channing  from  an  uncongenial  life  in  the 
West  and  provided  a  career  for  him  in  New  York. 
They  took  Fredrika  Bremer  to  see  New  England ;  and 
when  Fredrika  froze  in  the  icy  bed-chamber  of  a 
Puritan  farmhouse,  they  made  up  a  bed  for  her  before 
the  parlor  fire  and  occupied  the  frigid  guest-chamber 
themselves.  They  took  Margaret  Fuller  to  see 
Europe;  and  when  Margaret  was  lost  on  the  moun 
tain-top  and  the  Scotch  shepherds  spent  the  night 
looking  for  her,  Mr.  Spring  gave  them  a  splendid 
party  in  return.  Judged  by  their  behavior  toward 
these  friends,  the  Springs  set  little  store  by  the  virtues 
of  self-denial  and  took  a  naive  pleasure  in  giving 
people  what  they 'wanted.  The  stoical  Emerson  said, 
"  The  mind  is  its  own  place,"  but  the  kind-hearted 
Springs  thought  that,  when  Channing  was  discon 
tented  with  Cincinnati  and  Margaret  Fuller  consumed 

125 


iia6  Margaret  Fuller 

by  a  desire  to  go  to  Europe,  something  ought  to  be 
done  about  it.  The  fact  that  the  Springs  were  rich 
enough  to  gratify  their  generous  impulses  was  less 
remarkable  than  the  cheerful  simplicity  with  which 
they  dispensed  their  treats.  Of  course  Margaret 
also  had  some  treats  for  these  excellent  friends: 
for  instance,  she  could  take  the  good  Marcus  to  see 
the  great  Carlyle,  whose  works  the  good  man  enthusi 
astically  admired. 

On  August  I,  1846,  the  party  sailed  from  Boston 
on  the  Cambria.  A  voyage  on  the  Cambria  was  in 
itself  an  event  in  those  days,  and  this  particular  pas 
sage  was  memorable  for  being  the  shortest  trip  yet 
made  across  the  Atlantic.  The  time  was  ten  days  and 
sixteen  hours  from  Boston  to  Liverpool,  announced 
with  much  celebration  and  rejoicing  by  the  newspapers. 

Margaret  and  her  traveling  companions  were  keen 
upon  the  track  of  reform.  They  rejoiced  in  the  recent 
triumph  of  the  Corn  Laws  and  the  gathering  signs  of 
.  Chartism  in  England.  Wordsworth  was  pictured  in 
Margaret's  Tribune  letter  as  a  "  reverend  old  man, 
clothed  in  black,  and  walking  with  cautious  step  along 
the  level  garden-path  "  who  was  not  "  prepared  to  say 
in  the  matter  of  the  Corn  Laws  whether  existing 
interests  had  been  as  carefully  attended  to  as  was 
just."  She  went  to  hear  James  Martineau  preach 
and  described  him  as  one  of  those  "  who  love  the  new 


Contacts  127 


wine,  but  do  not  feel  that  they  can  afford  to  throw 
away  all  their  old  bottles."  At  the  Mechanics'  Insti 
tute  in  Liverpool,  she  was  enormously  pleased  to  hear 
The  Dial  quoted  by  the  Director  in  speaking  on  the 
subject  of  self-culture.  She  praised  the  work  that  the 
Institute  was  doing  for  girls,  but  she  added  briefly, 
"  Woman  nominally,  not  really,  at  the  head."  From 
Liverpool  also  she  wrote :  "  I  saw  there,  too,  the  body 
of  an  infant  borne  to  the  grave  by  women;  for  it  is 
a  beautiful  custom  here  that  those  who  have  fulfilled 
all  other  tender  offices  to  the  little  being  should  hold 
to  it  the  same  relation  to  the  very  last." 

The  London  Reform  Club  was  a  great  adventure 
to  the  whole  party,  especially  the  marvelous  kitchen 
arrangements,  of  which  Margaret  remarked  that 
"  Fourier  himself  might  have  taken  pleasure  in  them." 
Mr.  Spring  was  busy  taking  notes  on  the  steam  cook 
ing  and  washing  machinery,  which  he  meant  to  install 
in  the  Red  Bank  phalanstery  on  his  return  home,  and 
which  he  actually  did  with  great  success.  Margaret, 
always  peering  at  symptoms  of  woman's  status,  re 
marks  of  this  wonder-kitchen  that  there  she  found 
women  only  as  the  "  servants  of  servants ; "  but  she  did 
not  begrudge  the  chef  and  his  male  apprentices  their 
position  of  supremacy.  "  I  was  not  sorry,  however," 
she  wrote,  "  to  see  men  predominant  in  the  cooking  de 
partment,  as  I  hope  to  see  that  and  washing  transferred 


1 28  Margaret  Fuller 

to  their  care  in  the  progress  of  things,  since  they  are 
'  the  stronger  sex  V  With  Mr.  Spring  she  also 
visited  model  laundries,  and  they  busied  themselves 
.with  plans  for  installing  a  similar  institution  in  New 
York.  "  One  arrangement  that  they  have  here  in 
Paris  will  be  a  good  one,"  wrote  Margaret,  "  even 
when  we  cease  to  have  any  very  poor  people,  and, 
please  Heaven,  also  any  very  rich.  These  are  the 
Creches, — houses  where  poor  women  leave  their  chil 
dren  to  be  nursed  during  the  day  while  they  are  at 
work." 

a 

Margaret  and  her  friends,  primed  with  all  the  ideas 
of  Fourier,  visited  the  great  industries  of  England  and 
France  and  saw  for  themselves  the  misery  of  the 
working  classes  in  that  terrible  year.  At  Newcastle 
they  descended  into  a  coal  mine  and  at  Sheffield  they 
went  on  Saturday  night  to  see  the  steel-workers  paid 
off.  At  Manchester,  Margaret  went  out  in  the  street 
at  night  to  talk  with  the  girls  from  the  mills,  "  who 
were  strolling  bareheaded,  with  coarse,  rude,  and 
reckless  air,"  and  saw  "  through  the  windows  of  the 
gin-palaces  the  women  seated  drinking,  too  dull  to 
carouse."  In  Lyons,  she  went  into  some  weavers' 
homes,  consisting  of  a  single  room  filled  with  looms 
with  the  beds  on  shelves  near  the  ceiling.  Of  these 
women,  she  said,  "  There  are  but  two  ways  open  to 
them,  weaving  and  prostitution,  to  gain  their  bread." 


Contacts  129 


From  England,  she  wrote,  "  Can  any  man  who  has 
seen  these  things  dare  blame  the  Associationists  for 
their  attempt  to  find  prevention  against  such  misery 
and  wickedness  in  our  land,"  and  by  the  time  she  had 
reached  Paris,  she  was  of  the  opinion  that  "  erelong  . 
help  must  be  sought  by  other  means  than  words."  J 

Margaret's  visit  to  Harriet  Martineau  was  described 
by  the  latter  in  one  of  the  most  lively  passages  of 
her  autobiography.  She  expressed  her  opinion  of 
Margaret's  manners  and  criticized  her  behavior  as  a 
guest  at  Ambleside  with  the  warmest  animosity.  In 
deed,  her  resentment  was  somewhat  excusable  owing 
to  Margaret's  unpleasant  candor  with  regard  to  her 
book  Society  in  America,  published  in  1836.  The 
book  had  exasperated  not  only  Margaret  but  many 
of  the  author's  American  friends;  and  Margaret  with 
her  customary  candor  had  written  Miss  Martineau  a 
frank  letter. 

"  I  got  the  book  as  soon  as  it  came  out,"  she  wrote, 
"  long  before  I  received  the  copy  endeared  by  your 
handwriting,  and  devoted  myself  to  reading  it.  I  gave 
myself  up  to  my  natural  impressions,  without  seeking 
to  ascertain  those  of  others.  .  .  .  Certainly  you 
show  no  spirit  of  harshness  towards  this  country  in 
general.  .  .  .  But  many  passages  are  reformed  by 
intemperance  of  epithet.  .  .  .  Would  your  heart, 
could  you  but  investigate  the  matter,  approve  such 


130  Margaret  Fuller 

overstatement,  such  a  crude,  intemperate  tirade  as  you 
have  been  guilty  of  about  Mr.  Alcott, — a  true  and 
noble  man,  a  philanthropist,  whom  a  true  and 
noble  woman,  also  a  philanthropist,  should  have  de 
lighted  to  honor;  whose  disinterested  and  resolute 
efforts,  for  the  redemption  of  poor  humanity,  all  in 
dependent  and  faithful  minds  should  sustain,  since  the 
'  broadcloth '  vulgar  will  be  sure  to  assail  them ;  .  .  . 
a  man  whom  the  worldlings  of  Boston  hold  in  as  much 
horror  as  the  worldlings  of  ancient  Athens  did 
Socrates.  They  smile  to  hear  their  verdict  confirmed 
from  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  by  their  censor, 
Harriet  Martineau.  .  .  . 

"  I  have  thought  it  right  to  say  all  this  to  you,  since 
I  felt  it.  I  have  shrunk  from  the  effort,  for  I  fear 
that  I  must  lose  you.  ...  I  know  it  must  be  so 
trying  to  fail  of  sympathy,  at  such  a  time,  where  we 
expect  it.  And,  besides,  I  felt  from  the  book  that 
the  sympathy  between  us  is  less  general  than  I  had 
supposed,  it  was  so  strong  on  several  points.  It  is 
strange  enough  for  me  to  love  you  ever,  and  I  could 
no  more  have  been  happy  in  your  friendship,  if  I  had 
not  spoken  out  now." 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  the  friendship 
which  survived  this  piece  of  correspondence  was  cool 
and  formal  to  a  degree.  Nevertheless,  Miss  Martineau 
pretended  to  herself  that  she  had  forgotten  all  about 


Contacts  131 


the  painful  episode  when  Margaret  appeared  at 
Ambleside  ten  years  later.  "  I  am  sure  I  met  her  with 
every  desire  for  friendly  intercourse,"  Miss  Martineau 
protests.  Yet  Margaret,  it  appears,  from  her  hostess's 
lively  reminiscences,  behaved  atrociously.  She  and 
the  Springs  had  lodgings  in  the  village,  but  Miss 
Martineau  otherwise  did  the  honors  as  hostess.  Mar 
garet's  companions,  we  are  told,  evidently  enjoyed 
themselves  (they  had  that  faculty)  but  Margaret  as 
evidently  did  not.  One  day  she  would  insist  on 
haranguing  the  whole  party  incessantly  and  on  the 
next  she  would  not  speak  a  word  to  anyone.  As  Miss 
Martineau,  aided  by  her  convenient  deafness,  was  her 
self  an  incessant  and  uninterruptable  talker,  her  com 
ments  on  Margaret's  loquaciousness  have  the  familiar 
flavor  of  the  pot  who  called  the  kettle  black.  At  the 
same  time,  Margaret's  manners,  always  too  aggres 
sive  to  be  really  ladylike,  were  doubtless  not  improved 
by  the  emotional  crisis  in  which  she  found  herself  at 
this  particular  time,  owing  to  the  position  of  her 
affairs  with  the  errant  Mr.  Nathan. 

The  real  business  in  hand  between  Margaret  and 
her  Ambleside  hostess  was  mesmerism.  Miss  Mar- 
tineau's  experience  with  the  black  art  and  her  public 
defense  of  it  was  a  notorious  Victorian  scandal.  Mar 
garet's  visit  to  her  was  in  the  nature  of  an  assignment. 
She  had  to  report  back  to  the  Tribune  readers  on  the 


132  Margaret  Fuller 

state  of  Miss  Martineau's  health.  The  facts  of  the 
story  are  briefly  these.  After  five  years  of  helpless 
invalidism,  which  had  baffled  the  doctors,  Miss  Mar- 
tineau  had  been  restored  to  complete  health  by  a  short 
mesmeric  treatment  under  the  direction  of  Mr.  At 
kinson.  As  she  triumphantly  puts  it,  she  had  "  come 
back  unharmed  from  the  land  of  dreams,  .  .  .  while 
the  medical  world  was  hoping  to  hear  of  her  insanity/' 
Naturally  the  medical  world  resented  her  inexplicable 
cure,  and  the  public  resented  it  also.  It  took  a  good 
deal  of  courage  to  be  on  Miss  Martineau's  side,  but 
Margaret  was  on  her  side  and  so  was  Elizabeth 
Barrett.  "  Carlyle  calls  Harriet  Martineau  quite  mad 
because  of  her  belief  in  mesmerism,"  wrote  Miss 
Barrett;  "  for  my  own  part,  I  am  not  afraid  to  say 
that  I  almost  believe  in  mesmerism  and  quite  believe 
in  Harriet  Martineau."  And  Margaret  sent  her  re 
port  on  the  historic  case  to  the  Tribune  in  these  words : 
"  From  the  testimony  of  those  who  were  with  her  in 
and  since  her  illness,  her  recovery  would  seem  to  be 
of  as  magical  quickness  and  sure  progress  as  has  been 
represented."  Nevertheless  Margaret  was  somewhat 
puzzled  by  the  case.  She  noted  in  her  private  journal, 
"  The  look  of  health  in  her  face,  but  a  harried,  excited, 
over-stimulated  state  of  mind." 

The  truth   about  Harriet   Martineau's   illness,   of 
course,  was  that  it  was  of  an  hysterical  nature,  as 


Contacts  133 


Margaret's  ill-health  was  hysterical,  and  Elizabeth 
Barrett's,  and  Thomas  Carlyle's,  and  poor,  wasted, 
brilliant  Jane  Carlyle's.  Harriet  Martineau's  narra 
tive  of  how  she  fell  ill  is  enough  to  explain  the  success 
of  her  cure,  so  far  as  there  was  a  cure.  She  lived  at 
home  with  her  mother  in  the  role  of  a  dutiful  daughter 
until  the  age  of  thirty-eight.  Her  mother,  being  blind 
and  exigent,  was  a  most  trying  parent.  Harriet,  in 
the  meantime,  had  become  a  celebrated  author  and  an 
active  influence  in  public  affairs.  The  strain  of  her 
home  life  became  unendurable;  "  Heaven  knows,"  she 
exclaims,  "  I  never  sought  fame,  and  I  would  thank 
fully  have  given  it  all  away  in  exchange  for  domestic 
peace  and  ease.  But  there  it  was !  "  Obviously  there 
was  no  escape  from  her  filial  duties  but  to  fall  ill, 
which  she  did,  and  with  complete  thoroughness  and 
success.  Broken  in  health,  she  was  compelled  to  re 
main  at  the  seashore  separated  from  her  mother,  and 
her  condition,  in  spite  of  the  sea  air,  made  no  im 
provement.  She  suffered  for  months  from  the  most 
terrible  dreams,  in  which  she  seemed  to  see  her 
mother  fall  from  a  precipice,  or  a  staircase,  or  a 
church-steeple,  and  to  feel  that  it  was  her  fault.  She 
wished  to  show  by  these  dreams  how  over-anxious 
and  over-dutiful  had  been  her  attendance  on  her  be 
loved  parent,  but  the  modern  Freudian  recognizes  in 
them  the  revelation  of  a  secret  wish  which  struggled 


134  Margaret  Fuller 

for  birth  into  consciousness,  and  can  thereby  under 
stand  the  intensity  of  the  mental  conflict  to  which  the 
health  of  the  faithful  daughter  had  at  last  succumbed. 
But  mesmerism  was  the  nearest  approach  to  the  truth 
which  the  year  1846  offered  as  a  clue  to  illnesses  like 
these  and  one  must  give  credit  to  the  intelligence  of 
those  who,  like  Harriet  Martineau  and  Margaret 
Fuller,  took  it  seriously. 

Margaret  apparently  was  not  mesmerized  while  at 
Ambleside,  though  it  seems  incredible  that  with  her 
thirst  for  experience  she  should  have  allowed  the  op 
portunity  to  slip.  Miss  Martineau,  who  might  have 
tried  her  hand  on  Margaret  as  she  did — with  consid 
erable  success — on  Charlotte  Bronte,  was  not  suffi 
ciently  en  rapport  with  her  guest.  That  is  clear.  But 
the  fascinating  and  philosophical  Mr.  Atkinson,  who 
was  responsible  for  Miss  Martineau's  cure,  was  also 
there  and  he  found  in  Margaret  a  most  sympathetic 
listener.  "  The  professed  magnetizer  with  his  beaux 
yeux  and  extreme  sensibility,"  she  wrote,  "unable 
to  confer  benefit  without  receiving  injury,  gave  me 
yet  another  view  of  this  grand  subject."  Perhaps 
Margaret's  keen  enthusiasm  for  "the  prince  of  the 
English  mesmerizers  "  as  she  called  him,  did  not  par 
ticularly  increase  her  hostess's  good-will  towards  her 
on  this  occasion.  The  rapport  between  herself  and 
Mr.  Atkinson  continued  excellent,  as  she  afterwards 


Contacts  135 


saw  a  good  deal  of  him  in  London.  Still  there  is 
no  indication  in  Margaret's  notes  that  she  was  mes 
merized  by  Mr.  Atkinson.  Did  Miss  Martineau  fail 
to  encourage  it?  For  she  was  also  in  London,  and 
now  quite  angry  with  Margaret,  who  treated  her,  she 
said,  like  a  commonplace  person.  But  even  without 
the  attainment  of  the  mesmeric  rapport,  Margaret's 
enthusiastic  appreciation  of  Mr.  Atkinson  was  not 
without  certain  happy  results  for  her  widowed  state  of 
mind.  To  a  confidential  friend  at  home  she  wrote, 
"As  soon  as  I  reached  England,  I  found  how  right 
you  were  in  supposing  there  was  elsewhere  a  greater 
range  of  interesting  character  among  the  men,  than 
with  us."  She  added  a  description  of  Miss  Mar- 
tineau's  mesmerizer,  "with  a  head  for  Leonardo  to 
paint  ",  spoke  of  some  artists  she  had  met,  and  ended 
by  giving  the  palm  to  Mazzini.  "  By  far  the  most 
beauteous  person  I  have  seen  is  Joseph  Mazzini."  At 
the  same  time  she  sent  a  cool  message  to  Mr.  James 
Nathan,  her  quondam  lover,  through  a  common  friend, 
that  she  had  received  his  letter,  "  but  was  too  much 
involved  in  the  routine  of  visiting  and  receiving 
visitors  to  allow  her  mind  a  moment's  repose  to  reply 
to  it." 

For  years  Margaret  had  been  greatly  impressed 
by  the  peculiar  invalidism  of  two  English  women. 
"  Another  interesting  sign  of  the  time,"  she  had 


136  Margaret  Fuller 

written,  "  is  the  influence  exercised  by  two  women, 
Miss  Martineau  and  Miss  Barrett,  from  their  sick 
rooms.  The  lamp  of  life  which,  if  it  had  been  fed 
only  by  the  affections,  and  depended  on  precarious 
human  relations,  would  scarce  have  been  able  to  main 
tain  a  feeble  glare  in  the  lonely  prison,  now  shines  far 
and  wide  over  the  nations,  cheering  fellow-sufferers 
and  hallowing  the  joy  of  the  healthful."  This  was  all 
very  well,  but  in  reaching  England  she  found  that 
both  of  her  celebrated  invalids,  who  had  been  so  inde 
pendent  of  their  affections  and  of  precarious  human 
relations,  had  suddenly  ceased  to  be  invalids,  resumed 
their  human  relations,  and  developed  their  affections. 
As  soon  as  she  left  Miss  Martineau,  she  went  at  once 
to  Miss  Barrett  with  her  letters  of  introduction  only 
to  find  that  she,  as  well  as  Miss  Martineau,  had  made 
a  spectacular  recovery.  Margaret  posted  a  letter  back 
to  Mr.  Duyckinck  in  New  York  at  once.  "  Miss 
Barrett  has  just  eloped  with  Browning;  she  had  to 
elope,  Mr.  Howe  says,  from  a  severe,  hard  father. 
The  influence  of  this  father  seems  to  have  been  crush 
ing.  I  hope  she  may  now  be  happy  and  well,  perhaps 
I  shall  see  them — her  and  Browning — in  Italy."  The 
elopement  of  the  forty-year-old  daughter  had  brought 
to  light  all  the  details  of  the  father's  morbid  conduct, 
— how  he  had  mounted  guard  over  the  sick-room,  had 
refused  to  permit  his  daughter  to  move  from  her  sofa, 


Contacts  137 


and  had  prayed  over  her  presumably  incurable  illness. 
Margaret  arrived  in  London  just  in  time  for  the 
avalanche  of  gossip  which  followed  the  astounding 
elopement.  These  events  naturally  gave  her  much 
food  for  thought  concerning  the  psychic  cause  and 
cure  of  illness.  And  when  she  herself  went  to  a  per 
formance  of  Don  Giovanni,  after  having  suffered  for 
several  days  from  a  severe  neuralgic  pain  and  came 
away  realizing  that  the  opera  had  cured  her,  she  was 
moved  to  set  down  her  opinion  of  these  matters  in 
her  Tribune  letter.  "  Ah !  if  physicians  only  under 
stood  the  influence  of  the  mind  over  the  body,  instead 
of  treating,  as  they  so  often  do,  their  patients  like 
machines,  and  according  to  precedent." 

It  would  seem  as  if  Margaret  had  every  reason  to 
be  impressed  by  this  idea  during  her  visit  in  England. 
In  the  home  of  the  Carlyles, — another  goal  of  her 
pilgrimage, — it  was  the  same  story  of  inexplicable 
physical  misery  over  again.  Only  in  this  case,  there 
seemed  to  be  no  cure  or  amelioration  in  sight.  Mar 
garet  must  have  seen  the  emotional  strain  between  the 
Carlyles  at  its  .worst  for  this  was  the  year  when  Mrs. 
Carlyle  was  ready  for  desperate  remedies,  and,  but  for 
the  restraining  influence  of  Mazzini,  might  have 
actually  deserted.  Mazzini  told  her  to  go  home  and 
find  her  solace  in  communion  with  her  dead  parents, 
which  she  literally  did  for  another  twenty  years,  untif 


138  Margaret  Fuller 

she  died  and  was  laid  beside  her  father  in  the  Had- 
dington  churchyard.  Margaret  Fuller  visited  these 
sad  companions  midway  of  the  long,  unnatural  mar 
riage  described  on  Mrs.  Carlyle's  tombstone  thus: 
"  For  forty  years  she  was  the  true  and  ever-loving 
help-mate  of  her  husband  ".  It  was  a  sham  marriage 
to  the  end,  owing  to  Carlyle's  impotence,  and  the  ter 
rible  weight  of  morbidity,  the  dyspepsia  and  neuralgia 
which  pursued  them  like  a  plague,  was  the  result  of  the 
unhealthy  asceticism  in  which  they  lived. 

To  Emerson,  the  Carlyle  menage  was  idyllic.  He 
had  sent  Margaret  to  them  with  the  warmest  letters 
of  introduction.  Margaret  was  also  introduced  by  her 
book  on  Woman,  which  Jane  Carlyle,  along  with 
many  other  Londoners,  had  read.  "  I  have  been  re 
ceived  here  with  a  warmth  which  surprised  me,"  wrote 
Margaret  to  Mr.  Duyckinck,  "  it  is  chiefly  to  Woman 
in  the  ipth  that  I  am  indebted  for  this."  She  went  to 
the  Carlyles'  several  times,  and  recognized  that  the 
situation  was  not  idyllic  by  any  means.  Of  Carlyle, 
she  said,  "  He  seems  to  me  quite  isolated,  lonely  as 
the  desert." 

She  had  never  accepted  Carlyle  at  Emerson's  valua 
tion.  Her  review  of  Oliver  Cromwell  had  contained 
many  strictures  on  Carlyle's  views  of  life  and  she  had 
read  some  early  letters  of  his  which  fell  into  her  hands 
in  Liverpool  and  which  contained,  she  noted,  "  very 


Contacts  139 


low  views  of  life,  comfortable  and  prudential  advice 
as  to  marriage,  envy  of  riches,  thirst  for  fame  avowed 
as  a  leading  motive."  Now  at  last  she  saw  him  face 
to  face  in  his  home  at  Chelsea.  "For  a  couple  of 
hours,"  she  said,  "  he  was  talking  about  poetry  and 
the  whole  harangue  was  one  eloquent  proclamation  of 
the  defects  of  his  own  mind.  .  .  .  The  most  amus 
ing  part  is  when  he  comes  back  to  some  refrain,  as 
in  the  French  Revolution  of  the  sea-green.  In  this 
instance,  it  was  Petrarch  and  Laura,  the  last  word 
pronounced  with  his  ineffable  sarcasm  of  drawl. 
Although  he  said  this  over  fifty  times,  I  could  not  help 
laughing  when  Laura  would  come, — Carlyle  running 
his  chin  out,  when  he  spoke  it,  and  his  eyes  glancing 
till  they  looked  like  the  eyes  and  beak  of  a  bird  of 
prey !  Poor  Laura !  Lucky  for  her  that  her  poet  had 
already  got  her  safely  canonized  beyond  the  reach  of 
this  Teufelsdrock  vulture."  It  is  a  question  whether 
the  "  Laura "  he  so  bitterly  inveighed  against  was 
safely  out  of  reach  of  all  this  frustrate  vindictive- 
ness.  "  Mrs.  Carlyle  sat  by  in  silence,"  Margaret 
said,  "who  can  speak  while  her  husband  is  there?" 
The  Carlyles  gave  a  dinner  party  in  their  Chelsea 
house  for  Margaret  and  George  Henry  Lewes.  It  was 
s  fitting  that  Mr.  Carlyle  should  thus  seek  to  bring 
together  the  two  foremost  Goethe  critics  of  the  day. 
But  the  meeting  was  not  a  success ;  certainly  there  was 


140  Margaret  Fuller 

no  rapport  from  Margaret's  point  of  view.  Lewes  was 
engaged  in  writing  the  Life  of  Goethe  which  Margaret 
had  once  dreamed  of  writing  but  had  been  forced  to 
abandon  for  school-teaching  in  Providence.  George 
Eliot  was  not  at  the  party;  she  had  not  yet  come  to 
London,  being  still  at  home  in  Coventry  with  her  aged 
father.  Lewes  antagonized  Margaret  Fuller  at  first 
sight,  as  much  as  he  attracted  Marian  Evans.  Mar 
garet  never  could  endure  vivacious  men.  She  de 
scribed  him  as  "  a  witty,  French,  flippant  sort  of 
man,"  and  as  for  his  writing  a  Life  of  Goethe,  she 
thought  that  "  a  task  for  which  he  must  be  as  unfit 
as  irreligion  and  sparkling  shallowness  can  make 
him."  Notwithstanding  this  priggish  denunciation  of 
her  fellow-critic,  who  probably  had  traits  uncom 
fortably  suggestive  of  her  own,  Margaret's  life  and 
Lewes's  developed  a  certain  sympathetic  relationship 
in  after  years.  They  were  both  explained  as  acting  in 
imitation  of  Goethe  in  their  unconventional  marriages. 
It  is  also  very  probable  that  George  Eliot  was  more 
directly  influenced  by  Margaret  than  by  the  example 
of  Goethe.  The  following  passage  in  a  letter,  written 
to  a  friend  not  long  before  her  departure  with  Lewes 
for  the  continent,  seems  to  prove  it.  "You  know 
how  sad  one  feels  when  the  great  procession  has  swept 
by  one,  and  the  last  notes  of  its  music  have  died  away, 
leaving  one  alone  with  the  field  and  sky.  I  feel  so 


Contacts  (141 


about  life  sometimes.  It  is  a  help  to  read  such  a  life 
as  Margaret  Fuller's.  How  inexpressibly  touching 
that  passage  from  her  Journal, — '  I  shall  always  reign 
through  the  intellect,  but  the  life!  the  life!  oh,  my 
God!  shall  that  never  be  sweet?'  I  am  thankful,  as 
if  for  myself,  that  it  was  sweet  at  last."  Thus  Mar 
garet's  life,  despite  its  tragical  end,  helped  Marian 
Evans  to  have  the  courage  to  live  her  own.  Destiny 
made  her  in  spite  of  herself,  the  ally  of  this  "  witty r 
French,  flippant  sort  of  man  "  after  all. 

Margaret  and  the  Springs  arrived  in  Paris  in  time 
to  spend  Christmas  there.  Here  again  she  found  her 
self  not  wholly  unknown.  Her  essay  on  American 
Literature  had  been  translated  into  French  and  pub 
lished  in  La  Revue  Independente,  and  Margaret  was 
asked  by  the  editor  of  the  journal  to  write  for  it  after 
her  return  to  the  United  States.  She  saw  La  Mennais 
and  Beranger  and  heard  Chopin  play.  "  I  went  to  call 
on  La  Mennais,  to  whom  I  had  a  letter,"  she  writes. 
"  I  found  him  in  a  little  study ;  his  secretary  was  writ 
ing  in  a  larger  room  through  which  I  passed.  With 
him  was  a  somewhat  citizen-looking,  but  vivacious, 
elderly  man,  whom  I  was  at  first  sorry  to  see,  having 
wished  for  half-an-hour's  undisturbed  visit  to  the 
apostle  of  Democracy.  But  how  quickly  were  those 
feelings  displaced  by  joy  when  he  named  to  me  the 
great  national  lyrist  of  France,  the  unequaled 


142  Margaret  Fuller 

Beranger.  I  had  not  expected  to  see  him  at  all,  for 
he  is  not  one  to  be  seen  in  any  show  place ;  he  lives  in 
the  hearts  of  the  people,  and  needs  no  homage  from 
their  eyes.  I  was  very  happy  in  that  little  study  in  the 
presence  of  these  two  men,  whose  influence  has  been 
so  great,  so  real." 

One  of  Margaret's  most  vivid  Parisian  adventures 
was  in  the  dentist's  chair.  Perhaps  because  she  had 
failed  to  try  mesmerism  in  England,  she  now  had  to 
try  ether  in  Paris.  "  After  suffering  several  days 
very  much  with  the  toothache,  I  resolved  to  get  rid  of 
the  cause  of  sorrow  by  the  aid  of  ether;  not  sorry, 
either,  to  try  its  efficacy,  after  all  the  marvelous 
stories  I  had  heard.  The  first  time  I  inhaled  it,  I  did 
not  for  several  seconds  feel  the  effect,  and  was  just 
thinking,  '  Alas !  this  has  not  power  to  soothe  nerves 
so  irritable  as  mine,'  when  suddenly  I  wandered  off, 
I  don't  know  where,  but  it  was  a  sensation  like  wan 
dering  in  long  garden-walks,  and  through  many  alleys 
of  trees, — many  impressions,  but  all  pleasant  and 
serene.  The  moment  the  tube  was  removed,  I  started 
into  consciousness,  and  put  my  hand  to  my  cheek;  but, 
sad!  the  throbbing  tooth  was  still  there.  The  dentist 
said  I  had  not  seemed  to  him  insensible.  He  then 
gave  me  the  ether  in  a  stronger  dose,  and  this  time, 
I  quitted  the  body  instantly,  and  cannot  remember  any 
detail  of  what  I  saw  and  did;  but  the  impression  was 


Contacts  143 


as  in  the  Oriental  tale,  where  the  man  has  his  head  in 
the  water  an  instant  only,  but  in  his  vision  a  thousand 
years  seem  to  have  passed.  I  experienced  that  same 
sense  of  an  immense  length  of  time  and  succession  of 
impressions.  .  .  .  Suddenly  I  seemed  to  see  the  old 
dentist,  as  I  had  for  the  moment  before  I  inhaled  the 
gas,  amid  his  plants,  in  his  night-cap  and  dressing- 
gown;  in  the  twilight  the  figure  had  somewhat  of  a 
Faust-like,  magical  air,  and  he  seemed  to  say,  '  C'est 
inutile/  Again  I  started  up,  fancying  that  once  more 
he  had  not  dared  to  extract  the  tooth,  but  it  was  gone. 
What  is  worth  noticing  is  the  mental  translation  I 
made  of  his  words,  which  my  ear  must  have  caught, 
for  my  companion  tells  me  he  said,  '  C'est  la  moment,' 
a  phrase  of  just  as  many  syllables,  but  conveying  just 
the  opposite  sense." 

The  climax  of  Margaret's  experiences  in  Paris, — 
perhaps  the  real  climax  of  her  life, — was  her  meeting 
with  George  Sand.  At  first  Madame  Sand  was  at  her 
chateau  in  the  country  and  Margaret  despaired  of 
seeing  her.  "  At  last,  however,  she  came ;  and  I  went 
to  see  her  at  her  house,  Place  d'Orleans.  I  found  it 
a  handsome  modern  residence.  She  had  not  answered 
my  letter,  written  about  a  week  before,  and  I  felt  a 
little  anxious  lest  she  should  not  receive  me;  for  she  is 
too  much  the  mark  of  impertinent  curiosity,  as  well 
as  too  busy,  to  be  easily  accessible  to  strangers.  I  am 


144  Margaret  Fuller 

by  no  means  timid,  but  I  have  suffered,  for  the  first 
time  in  France,  some  of  the  torments  of  mauvaise 
honte,  enough  to  see  what  they  must  be  to  many. 

"  The  servant  who  admitted  me  was  in  the  pic 
turesque  costume  of  a  peasant,  and,  as  Madame  Sand 
afterward  told  me,  her  goddaughter,  whom  she  had 
brought  from  her  province.  She  announced  me  as, 
'  Madame  Salere/  and  returned  into  the  anteroom  to 
tell  me,  '  Madame  says  she  does  not  know  you.'  I 
began  to  think  I  was  doomed  to  a  rebuff,  among  the 
crowd  who  deserve  it.  However,  to  make  assurance 
sure,  I  said,  '  Ask  if  she  has  not  received  a  letter  from 
me?' 

"As  I  spoke,  Madame  Sand  opened  the  door  and 
stood  looking  at  me  an  instant.  Our  eyes  met.  I 
shall  never  forget  her  look  at  that  moment.  The  door 
way  made  a  frame  for  her  figure;  she  is  large,  but 
well-formed.  She  was  dressed  in  a  robe  of  dark  violet 
silk,  with  a  black  mantle  on  her  shoulders,  her  beau 
tiful  hair  dressed  with  the  greatest  taste,  her  whole 
appearance  and  attitude,  in  its  simple,  and  ladylike 
dignity,  presenting  an  almost  ludicrous  contrast  to  the 
vulgar  caricature  of  George  Sand.  Her  face  is  very 
little  like  the  portraits,  but  much  finer;  the  upper  part 
of  the  forehead  and  eyes  are  beautiful,  the  lower, 
strong  and  masculine,  expressive  of  a  hardy  tempera 
ment  and  strong  passions,  but  not  in  the  least  coarse; 


Contacts  145 


the  complexion  olive,  and  the  air  of  the  whole  head 
Spanish  (as,  indeed,  she  was  born  at  Madrid,  and  is 
only  on  one  side  of  French  blood).  All  these  details 
I  saw  at  a  glance;  but  what  fixed  my  attention  was 
the  expression  of  goodness,  nobleness,  and  power,  that 
pervaded  the  whole ;  the  truly  human  heart  and  nature 
that  shone  in  the  eyes.  As  our  eyes  met,  she  said, 
'  C'est  vous ',  and  held  out  her  hand.  I  took  it,  and 
went  into  her  little  study;  we  sat  down  a  moment, 
then  I  said,  '  II  me  fait  de  bien  de  vous  voir ',  and  I 
am  sure  I  said  it  with  my  whole  heart,  for  it  made 
me  very  happy  to  see  such  a  woman,  so  large  and  so 
developed  a  character,  and  everything  that  is  good 
in  it  so  really  good.  I  loved,  shall  always  love 
her.  .  .  . 

"  She  was  very  much  pressed  for  time,  as  she  was 
then  preparing  copy  for  the  printer;  and,  having  just 
returned,  there  were  many  applications  to  see  her,  but 
she  wanted  me  to  stay  then,  saying,  '  It  is  better  to 
throw  things  aside  and  seize  the  present  moment '.  I 
stayed  a  good  part  of  the  day,  and  was  very  glad 
afterwards,  for  I  did  not  see  her  again  uninter 
rupted.  .  .  . 

"  Her  daughter  is  just  about  to  be  married.  It  is 
said,  there  is  no  congeniality  between  her  and  her 
mother ;  but  for  her  son  she  seems  to  have  much  love, 
and  he  loves  and  admires  her  extremely.  .  .  . 


146  Margaret  Fuller 

"  I  heartily  enjoyed  the  sense  of  so  rich,  so  prolific, 
so  ardent  a  genius.  I  liked  the  woman  in  her,  too, 
very  much;  I  never  liked  a  woman  better.  For  the 
rest,  I  do  not  care  to  write  about  it  much,  for  I  can 
not,  in  the  room  and  time  I  have  to  spend,  express 
my  thoughts  as  I  would ;  but  as  near  as  I  can  express 

the  sum-total,  it  is  this.    S and  others  who  admire 

her,  are  anxious  to  make  a  fancy  picture  of  her,  and 
represent  her  as  a  Helena  (in  the  Seven  Chords  of 
the  Lyre) ;  all  whose  mistakes  are  the  fault  of  the 
present  state  of  society.  But  to  me,  the  truth  seems 
to  be  this.  She  has  that  purity  in  her  soul,  for  she 
knows  well  how  to  love  and  prize  its  beauty;  but  she 
herself  is  quite  another  sort  of  person.  She  needs  no 
defense,  but  only  to  be  understood,  for  she  has  bravely 
acted  out  her  nature,  and  always  with  good  intentions. 
She  might  have  loved  one  man  permanently,  if  she 
could  have  found  one  contemporary  with  her  who 
could  interest  and  command  her  throughout  her 
range;  but  there  was  hardly  a  possibility  for  that,  for 
such  a  person.  Thus  she  has  naturally  changed  the 
objects  of  her  affection,  and  several  times.  Also 
there  may  have  been  something  of  the  Bacchante  in 
her  life,  and  of  the  love  of  night  and  storm,  and  the 
free  raptures  amid  which  roamed  on  the  mountain- 
tops  the  followers  of  Cybele,  the  great  goddess,  the 
great  mother.  But  she  was  never  coarse,  never  gross, 


Contacts  147 


and  I  am  sure  her  generous  heart  has  not  failed  to 
draw  some  rich  drops  from  every  kind  of  wine-press. 
When  she  has  done  with  an  intimacy,  she  likes  to 
break  it  off  suddenly,  and  this  has  happened  often, 
both  with  men  and  women.  Many  calumnies  upon 
her  are  traceable  to  this  cause. 

"  I  forgot  to  mention  that,  while  talking,  she  does 
smoke  all  the  time  her  little  cigarette.  This  is  now  a 
common  practice  among  ladies  abroad,  but  I  believe 
originated  with  her. 

"  For  the  rest,  she  holds  her  place  in  the  literary 
and  social  world  of  France  like  a  man,  and  seems  full 
of  energy  and  courage  in  it.  I  suppose  she  has  suf 
fered  much  but  she  has  also  enjoyed  and  done  much, 
and  her  expression  is  one  of  calmness  and  happiness." 

Margaret  had  of  course  had  many  varying  accounts 
of  George  Sand  before  she  saw  her  face  to  face.  In 
London  she  had  had  the  view  of  Mazzini  who  was 
George  Sand's  great  advocate  and  defender  before 
the  British  public  and  to  whom  Sand  seemed  the 
"  voice  of  down-trodden  womanhood."  Margaret's 
vision  was  as  little  confused  by  the  martyr's  halo  as 
by  the  caricatures;  she  saw  the  woman  as  she  was. 


CHAPTER  IX 
HER  DEBT  TO  NATURE 

ON  the  journey  from  Paris  to  Italy,  Margaret  made 
two  stops.  The  first  was  in  Lyons,  where  she  visited 
the  weavers'  garrets  and  saw  with  her  own  eyes  what 
she  had  heard  of  in  Paris.  The  second  stop  was  at 
Avignon,  where,  finding  "  the  banks  of  the  Rhone  still 
sheeted  with  white,"  she  "  waded  through  melting 
snow  to  Laura's  tomb." 

At  last,  she  was  in  Italy,  at  Aries.  "  I  saw  the  little 
saxifrage  blossoming  on  the  steps  of  the  amphitheater, 
and  fruit  trees  in  flower  amid  the  tombs.  Here  for 
the  first  time  I  saw  the  great  handwriting  of  the 
Romans  and  its  proper  medium  of  stone,  and  I  was 
content.  It  looked  as  grand  and  solid  as  I  expected, 
as  if  life  in  those  days  was  worth  the  having,  the  en 
joying,  and  the  using." 

Margaret  Fuller  must  be  included  in  the  long  list 
of  famous  people  who  have  loved  Italy  and  Rome  with 
all  the  ardor  of  a  personal  love.  This  list  includes 
Hannibal  and  Winkelmann,  Shelley  and  Byron,  Eliza 
beth  Barrett  and  Margaret  Fuller,  Goethe  and  Freud. 
"  I  may  say  that  only  in  Rome  have  I  felt  what  it  is 

148 


Her  Debt  to  Nature  149 

to  be  a  man,"  said  Goethe  in  his  old  age.  "  Compared 
with  my  situation  at  Rome  I  may  say  I  have  never 
since  known  happiness."  As  a  school-mistress  at 
Providence,  Margaret  had  translated  these  words  and 
they  had  got  into  her  blood,  intensifying  a  longing 
early  derived  from  her  childhood  acquaintance  with 
the  classics.  All  the  romanticists  of  Margaret's  gen 
eration  made  love  to  Rome.  "  Rome,  my  Rome,  city 
of  the  soul,"  said  Byron;  and  amid  the  austerities  of 
New  England  life,  Margaret's  homesickness  for  Rome 
developed  an  actual  intention.  Rome,  the  glamorous, 
the  unattainable — all  imaginative  souls  who  chafed 
under  the  repressions  of  a  Puritan  civilization  dreamed 
of  Rome  as  the  symbol  of  love  and  freedom.  The 
motivation  of  all  this  passion  for  a  place  is  analyzed 
by  Freud,  out  of  his  own  experience,  for  apparently 
he  has  himself  known  the  pains  and  pleasures  of  this 
peculiar  Rome-wish.  He  tells  how  he  used  to  dream 
of  going  to  Rome,  and  adds,  "  I  suppose  I  shall  still 
have  to  satisfy  this  longing  by  means  of  dreams  for 
a  long  time  to  come."  Some  years  afterwards,  he 
added  this  illuminating  footnote :  "  I  have  long  since 
learned  that  it  only  requires  a  little  courage  to  fulfil 
even  such  unattainable  wishes."  This  passage  from 
Freud  expresses  Margaret's  feelings,  when,  after  all 
the  long  years  of  delay  she  at  last  found  herself  in 
the  promised  land. 


150  Margaret  Fuller 

But  emotional  ideals,  however  firmly  rooted  in  the 
instincts,  cannot  stand  up  empty  any  more  than  meal- 
sacks.  Margaret  brought  to  Italy  and  the  Italian 
situation  an  educational  equipment  of  which  an  Italian 
citizen  might  well  have  been  proud.  She  was  well- 
read  in  Dante,  Petrarch,  Tasso,  Foscolo,  Alfieri, 
Manzoni,  and  Mazzini.  Italy  was  crowded  with 
memories  for  her ;  she  had  been  there  so  often  through 
the  medium  of  books  and  the  lives  of  her  heroes. 
"  We  climbed  the  hill  to  Assisi,"  she  writes.  "  I  looked 
back  and  saw  the  carriage  toiling  up  the  steep  path, 
drawn  by  a  pair  of  those  light-colored  oxen  Shelley 
so  much  admired.  I  stood  near  the  spot  where  Goethe 
met  with  a  little  adventure,  which  he  has  described 
with  even  more  than  his  usual  delicate  humor.  Who 
can  ever  be  alone  for  a  moment  in  Italy  ?  "  All  her 
life  had  been  a  preparation  for  this  visit.  At  last,  on 
her  thirty-seventh  birthday,  her  goal  was  achieved  and 
she  found  herself  in  Rome. 

During  the  month  of  May,  she  grew  familiar  with 
every  aspect  of  St.  Peter's, — the  view  from  the  dome 
over  the  city  and  "  its  Campagna,  its  villas  with  their 
cypresses  and  pines  serenely  sad  as  is  nothing  else  in 
the  world."  She  loved  the  torch-lit  scene  of  the 
"  stone  popes  where  they  lie  on  their  tombs,  and  the 
old  mosaics,  and  virgins  with  gilt  caps  "  .  .  .  "  St. 
Peter's,"  she  said,  "  is  a  mixture  of  sublimest  heaven 


Her  Debt  to  Nature  151 

with  corruptest  earth;  "  the  hours  she  spent  there  were 
"  the  splendidest  part  of  her  life." 

In  this  mood,  she  encountered  a  very  handsome 
stranger  after  vespers  on  Holy  Thursday  and  walked 
home  with  him  from  the  Vatican  to  the  Corso.  Mrs. 
Story  wrote  a  careful  account  of  how  Margaret  was 
looking  for  her  friends,  the  Springs,  peering  through 
her  glasses  at  the  crowd,  when  a  gallant  young  Italian 
came  up  and  offered  his  services.  But  the  Springs  had 
conveniently  disappeared,  there  was  no  carriage  in  the 
usual  place  outside,  and  so  the  chivalrous  stranger 
escorted  the  American  lady  to  her  lodgings.  The  next 
day  he  was  seen  walking  past  the  house,  after  which 
the  affair  lost  its  clandestine  air  and  the  young  man 
became  conventionally  attached  to  the  party  as  Mar 
garet's  constant  caller  and  attentive  escort. 

He  turned  out  to  be  an  impoverished  Marchese,  »  / 
about  ten  years  younger  than  Margaret,  and  the  ' 
youngest  son  of  the  family.  He  had  three  older 
brothers,  who  were  in  the  Papal  service,  while  the  old 
Marquese  was  the  official  head  of  a  Roman  rione  or 
ward.  Thus  it  appears  that  the  Ossolis  were  consid 
erably  involved  in  Roman  politics,  which  must  have 
had  a  familiar  appeal  for  Margaret.  Old  Ossoli  was 
in  his  last  illness  when  she  appeared  on  the  scene,  and 
Angelo,  still  living  at  home  without  any  definite 
career,  was  engaged  in  nursing  his  father.  The  old 


i  £2  Margaret  Fuller 

Marquese  died,  and  Margaret  received  the  young 
man  straight  from  the  hands  of  his  father,  as  he  was, 
without  ability  or  ambition  in  any  direction,  with 
intense  and  clinging  affections,  and  with  unusual  per 
sonal  beauty.  An  American  sculptor  in  Rome  declared 
that  Ossoli  was  the  most  beautiful  man  he  had  ever 
seen. 

He  was  absolutely  without  vivacity,  being  reserved 
and  silent  in  his  manners  and  marked  by  a  rather 
melancholy  expression.  Though  Margaret  often  re 
proached  Emerson  because  he  would  not  laugh  "  in  a 
cordial  human  fashion,"  she  never  really  liked  any 
man  who  did.  Her  young  Roman,  whom  she  had 
traveled  so  far  to  find,  was  as  much  of  a  Puritan  in 
manners  and  disposition  as  if  she  had  found  him  in 
Cambridgeport.  Writing  to  her  mother,  Margaret 
said  that  Ossoli  had  ways  that  reminded  her  of  her 
brother  Eugene. 

To  a  bluestocking  like  Margaret,  who  had  sacri 
ficed  the  very  best  years  of  her  life  to  putting  her 
brothers  through  college  and  who  inherited  a  supreme 
reverence  for  the  Harvard  degree,  the  ignorance  of 
her  Ossoli  must  have  seemed  appalling.  His  educa 
tion  had  been  in  the  hands  of  a  lazy  priest  who  had 
neglected  him,  so  that  books  and  reading  played  no 
part  in  his  grown-up  life.  By  the  side  of  the  woman 
who  read  "  at  a  rate  like  Gibbon's,"  her  handsome 


Her  Debt  to  Nature  153 

lover  seemed  almost  illiterate;  but  by  the  side  of  the 
average  gentleman  of  his  own  class  in  Italy,  perhaps 
his  education  would  have  made  a  much  better  show 
ing.  One  cannot  know;  one  only  knows  that  Mar 
garet,  anxious  not  to  over-praise  him  in  her  letters 
home,  for  obvious  reasons,  explained  that  he  had  no 
intellectual  interests  and  no  taste  for  books.  Antici 
pating  the  first  impression  he  would  make  on  her 
Transcendental  friends,  she  may  have  even  under 
estimated  his  abilities  in  the  hope  of  creating  a  fa 
vorable  rather  than  a  disappointing  surprise. 

The  facts,  however,  are  that  Ossoli  played  the  part 
of  a  judicious  conspirator  and  a  brave  officer  in  the 
Roman  Revolution.  But,  though  he  joined  the  lib 
erals  in  fighting  the  Pope,  he  clung  to  his  ancestral 
religion  and  cherished  its  fantasies  and  superstitions. 
He  went  regularly  to  vesper  service,  even  after  his 
marriage,  and  Margaret,  far  from  discouraging  his 
simple  piety,  often  went  with  him.  She  respected 
what  she  described  as  the  "  profound  myths  "  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  "  Indeed,"  she  remarked,  "  such 
things  need  to  be  judged  of  by  another  standard  than 
the  Connecticut  Blue-Laws  ".  Margaret  herself  had 
traveled  a  long  way  from  the  Puritanical  standards  of 
her  early  environment.  She  could  comprehend  George 
Sand  and  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  and  knew  that 
humanity  included  more  things  than  the  code  of  John 


154  Margaret  Fuller 

Cotton  had  ever  dreamed  of.  Henry  James  said, 
"  There  might  be  ways  for  her  of  being  vivid  that 
were  not  as  the  ways  of  Boston." 

After  the  meeting  with  Ossoli  in  May,  Margaret 
and  her  friends  left  Rome  in  June,  journeying  north 
ward.  The  plan  was  to  visit  Assisi,  Perugia,  Florence, 
Bologna,  Venice,  Verona,  Mantua,  and  Milan;  after 
that,  Switzerland;  then  Germany;  and  from  there  back 
to  England  before  returning  home.  But  no  sooner 
had  the  party  arrived  in  Florence  than  Margaret  began 
to  lay  plans  for  returning  to  Rome.  At  first,  she  de 
cided  to  go  with  her  companions  as  far  as  Switzer 
land  and  then  turn  back  for  the  autumn.  But  she 
ended  by  falling  ill  in  Venice,  and  stopping  there 
while  the  Springs  went  on  according  to  their  original 
plans.  She  followed  along  the  same  route  later,  stop 
ping  long  enough  in  Milan  to  become  deeply  interested 
in  revolutionary  plans  in  which  Milan  was  already  far 
advanced.  She  spent  the  summer's  end  in  Switzer 
land,  and  by  the  first  of  October  was  back  in  Rome 
and  settled  for  the  winter  in  a  furnished  room,  which 
she  dignified  by  the  name  of  an  "  apartment." 

With  her  decision  to  desert  the  Springs,  she  gave 
up  all  the  comforts  and  conveniences  of  traveling  in 
their  company.  She  wrote  to  her  brother  for  four 
hundred  dollars  and  planned  to  make  it  last  her  six 
months.  "  I  should  always  suffer  the  pain  of  Tantalus, 


Her  Debt  to  Nature  155 

thinking  of  Rome,  if  I  could  not  see  it  more  thor 
oughly  than  I  have  as  yet  even  begun  to."  She  took 
a  room  again  in  the  Corso,  where  she  could  see  all 
the  motions  of  Rome  "  in  tranquil  companionship,  not 
in  the  restless  impertinence  of  sight-seeing/'  In  the 
same  strain,  she  wrote  to  Marcus  Spring  in  Germany, 
which  had  lost  all  charm  for  Margaret.  "  All  other 
places  faded  away,  now  that  I  again  saw  St.  Peter's 
and  heard  the  music  of  the  fountains."  She  found 
some  encouragement  for  her  recklessness  in  a  meeting 
with  William  Wetmore  Story,  also  late  of  Boston, 
who  had  finally  given  up  the  law  for  an  artist's  life 
in  Italy. 

Margaret's  intimacy  with  Angelo  Ossoli  dated  from 
her  return  to  Rome.  Apparently  she  did  not  intend  to 
be  married  to  him,  for  she  regarded  the  marriage  as 
unsuitable  in  many  ways.  The  difference  in  their  ages 
and  interests  and  the  similarity  in  their  poverty  made 
the  union  seem  impossible.  But  her  fate  pursued  her 
swiftly  and  before  Christmas,  she  knew  that  she  was 
to  have  a  child.  What  she  had  entered  upon  as  a 
perishable  romance  would  have  to  be  perpetuated  as 
life-long  common  struggle  for  existence.  Her  four 
hundred  dollars  for  six  months  was  suddenly  most 
pitifully  inadequate;  Ossoli,  it  seems,  had  no  resources; 
and  the  kind,  affectionate  Springs  were  too  far  away 
to  help.  In  her  crisis,  she  could  look  nowhere  for 


156  Margaret  Fuller 

protection  and  aid.  She  wrote  to  her  old  friend 
Caroline  Sturgis  all  but  the  actual  facts  of  her  situa 
tion.  "  I  have  known  some  happy  hours,  but  they 
all  lead  to  sorrow;  and  not  only  the  cups  of  wine,  but 
of  milk,  seem  drugged  with  poison  for  me.  It  does 
not  seem  to  be  my  fault,  this  Destiny;  I  do  not  court 
these  things, — they  come.  I  am  a  poor  magnet,  with 
power  to  be  wounded  by  the  bodies  I  attract.  .  .  . 

"  When  I  arrived  in  Rome,  I  was  at  first  intoxicated 
to  be  here.  The  weather  was  beautiful,  and  many  cir 
cumstances  combined  to  place  me  in  a  kind  of  passive, 
childlike  well-being.  That  is  all  over  now,  and,  with 
this  year,  I  enter  upon  a  sphere  of  my  destiny  so  dif 
ficult,  that  I,  at  present,  see  no  way  out,  except  through 
the  gate  of  death.  It  is  useless  to  write  of  it;  you  are 
at  a  distance  and  cannot  help  me; — whether  accident 
or  angel  will,  I  have  no  intimation.  I  have  no  reason 
to  hope  I  shall  not  reap  what  I  have  sown,  and  do  not. 
Yet  how  I  shall  endure  it  I  cannot  guess;  it  is  all  a 
dark,  sad  enigma.  The  beautiful  forms  of  art  charm 
no  more,  and  a  love,  in  which  there  is  all  fondness 
but  no  help,  flatters  in  vain." 

The  tone  of  her  Tribune  correspondence  showed 
the  depression  of  her  spirits.  She  described  the 
Christmas  festivities  and  the  worship  of  the  Catholic 
bambino  with  touches  of  realistic  irony.  "  A  faint 
and  misty  gleam  of  sun  greeted  the  day  on  which 


Her  Debt  to  Nature  157 

there  was  the  feast  of  the  Bambino,  the  most  venerated 
date  of  Rome.  ...  It  has  received  more  splendid 
gifts  than  any  other  idol.  An  orphan,  by  my  side, 
now  struggling  with  difficulties  [probably  the  penni 
less  Ossoli]  showed  me  on  its  breast  a  splendid  jewel, 
which  a  doting  grandmother  thought  more  likely  to 
benefit  her  soul  if  given  to  the  Bambino,  than  if 
turned  into  money  to  give  her  grandchildren  educa 
tion  and  prospects  in  life."  She  went  again  to  the 
grand  feast  in  honor  of  the  Bambino  and  watched 
with  a  peculiar  fascination  a  man  who  knelt  long  with 
bowed  head  before  the  image  and  seemed  to  her  to 
be  in  an  anguish  of  prayer,  as  she  said,  "  either  from 
repentance  or  anxiety."  "  I  wished  I  could  have 
hoped  the  ugly  little  doll  would  do  him  any  good/* 
she  added,  rather  spitefully. 

Her  attentions  to  the  rich  Bambino  during  Christ 
mas  week  were  varied  by  a  visit  to  another  church 
to  see  a  nun  take  the  veil.  "  The  nun,  an  elegantly 
dressed  woman  of  five  or  six  and  twenty, — pretty 
enough,  but  whose  quite  worldly  air  gave  the  idea  that 
it  was  one  of  those  arrangements  made  because  no 
suitable  establishment  could  otherwise  be  given  her, 
— came  forward,  knelt,  and  prayed.  Her  confessor, 
in  that  strained,  unnatural  whine  too  common  among 
all  preachers  and  all  countries,  praised  himself  for 
having  induced  her  to  enter  on  a  path  which  would 


158  Margaret  Fuller 

lead  her  fettered  steps  from  palm  to  palm,  from 
triumph  to  triumph!  Poor  thing!  She  looked  as  if 
domestic  olives  and  poppies  were  all  she  wanted,  and 
lacking  these,  tares  and  wormwood  must  be  her  por 
tion.  She  was  then  taken  behind  a  grating,  her  hair 
cut,  and  her  clothes  exchanged  for  the  nun's  vestments  ; 
the  black-robed  sisters  who  worked  upon  her  looking 
like  crows  or  ravens  at  their  ominous  feast.  .  .  . 
The  effect  on  my  mind  was  revolting  and  painful  to 
the  last  degree."  She  dwelt  at  length  on  the  horror 
of  this  young  woman's  future,  in  order  to  reassure 
herself,  no  doubt,  and  ended  with  the  statement  that 
it  was  her  own  conviction, — that  "the  snares  of  the 
world  are  less  dangerous  than  the  demons  of  soli 
tude."  Margaret  had  tried  both  in  her  life,  and  she 
1  realized  that  her  present  situation  with  its  actual  dan 
gers  was  safer  after  all  than  her  solitary  year  of 
fantasies  in  Boston,  with  its  midnight  visitants  from 
other  worlds  and  its  mystic  ecstasies.  With  her  char 
acteristic  honesty,  she  wrote  to  Emerson,  "  Some 
years  ago,  I  thought  you  were  unjust,  because  you 
did  not  lend  faith  to  my  spiritual  experiences;  but  I 
see  you  were  quite  right." 

But  her  consciousness  of  fulfilment  was  her  only 
solace  in  the  midst  of  difficulties.  The  romantic 
glamour  had  fled  from  her  world;  the  picturesque 
drama  of  Catholicism  had  lost  its  savor.  It  was  a 


Her  Debt  to  Nature  159 

real  comfort  now  to  criticize  the  show.  The  Church, 
for  all  its  Madonna  worship  and  its  veneration  of 
female  saints,  did  not  provide  proper  seats  for  women, 
she  said.  "All  the  good  seats  were  for  the  men  in 
the  area  below,  but  in  the  gallery  windows  and  from 
the  organ  loft,  a  few  women  were  allowed  to  peep 
at  what  was  going  on.  I  was  one  of  these  exceptional 
characters."  She  forgot  all  about  her  recent  criti 
cisms  of  those  objectionable  Americans  who  could 
not  appreciate  the  poetry  and  symbolism  of  the 
Church  and  joined  their  company.  "  There  was  once 
a  soul  in  the  religion  while  the  blood  of  its  martyrs 
was  yet  fresh  on  the  ground,  but  that  soul  was  always 
too  much  encumbered  with  the  remains  of  pagan 
habits  and  customs;  that  soul  is  now  quite  fled  else 
where  and  in  the  splendid  catafalco,  watched  by  so 
many  white  and  red-robed  snuff-taking,  sly-eyed  men, 
would  they  let  it  be  opened,  nothing  would  be  found 
but  bones!" 

Her  marriage  with  Ossoli  took  place  at  some  date 
which  Margaret  never  revealed.  Her  friend,  Mrs. 
Story,  afterwards  said  it  had  occurred  in  December, 
but  this  could  not  have  been  correct,  as  Margaret 
would  have  had  no  reason  in  that  case  for  concealing 
it.  This  is  all  the  more  remarkable,  as  she  must  have 
known  in  December  that  the  marriage  was  necessary. 
Her  reluctance  to  confirm  the  tie  by  marriage  must 


160  Margaret  Fuller 

have  been  exceedingly  great,  that  she  should  thus 
have  complicated  matters  by  further  postponement. 

It  was  true  that  a  legalized  union,  openly  acknowl 
edged,  involved  a  pecuniary  risk  for  them.  The 
Ossoli  estate  had  not  yet  been  settled  and  Margaret's 
husband  would  certainly  have  been  cut  off  from  his 
portion  for  having  married  a  Protestant  and  a  radical. 
Afterwards  Margaret  gave  this  as  her  reason  for  hav 
ing  so  long  concealed  the  marriage.  "  But/*  she 
wrote  to  her  Italian  friend,  Madame  Arconati,  "  to 
you,  I  add,  this  is  only  half  the  truth."  She  waited 
until  her  child  was  a  year  old  before  she  made  her 
announcement,  and  then  withheld  the  date. 

There  is  not  the  least  hint  that  the  gentlemanly 
Ossoli  shirked  the  situation  in  any  regard.  On  the 
contrary,  his  fidelity  and  affection  were  unswerving. 
Without  doubt  Ossoli  was  in  love.  Margaret  did  not 
find  herself  at  any  time  in  the  conventional  role  of 
Gretchen;  her  husband  was  her  ally  against  society. 
Whatever  the  unknown  details  were,  the  affair  did  not 
turn  out  as  moralists  would  predict.  There  is  a  com 
mon  assumption  that  a  young  man  cannot  entertain 
a  romantic  attachment  for  an  older  woman.  So 
strongly  established  is  this  opinion  that  we  find  Mar 
garet's  biographers  preoccupied  with  proofs  that 
Ossoli  really  did  love  his  American  wife  and  that  he 
did  not  marry  her  for  her  money!  Even  the  testi- 


Her  Debt  to  Nature  161 

mony  of  the  American  consul  at  Turin  is  solemnly 
brought  forward.  He  wrote  to  Mr.  Emerson,  who 
apparently  wanted  to  be  shown,  "  It  is  abundantly 
evident  that  her  young  husband  discharged  all  the 
obligations  of  his  relation  to  her  con  amore.  His 
admiration  amounted  to  veneration,  and  her  yearning 
to  be  loved  seemed  at  last  to  be  satisfied."  Whether 
the  consular  seal  helped  to  convince  Emerson  is  un 
fortunately  not  on  record. 

The  puzzle  was  a  double  one.  It  had  two  members : 
How  could  Ossoli  marry  a  woman  so  much  older  than 
himself  and  altogether  without  beauty?  and,  How 
could  Margaret,  with  all  her  culture,  marry  a  man 
without  intellect  or  education?  The  answer  to  the 
puzzle  is  that  he  loved  her  for  her  age  and  dignity 
and  authority,  she  loved  him  for  his  youth  and  beauty. 
He  filled  up  the  place  left  vacant  in  her  life  by  her 
favorite  brother  Eugene  and  she  restored  in  his  the 
long-cherished  maternal  image.  Margaret  wrote  to 
her  mother  this  description  of  her  husband :  "  He  has, 
I  think,  even  a  more  holy  feeling  about  a  mother, 
from  having  lost  his  own,  when  very  small.  It  has 
been  a  life-long  want  with  him.  He  often  shows  me 
a  little  scar  on  his  face,  made  by  a  jealous  dog,  when 
his  mother  was  caressing  him  as  an  infant.  He  prizes 
that  blemish  much."  On  the  basis  of  these  older  and 
more  intense  relationships,  they  had  discovered  a  pro- 


162  Margaret  Fuller 

found  affinity  for  each  other.  Probably  there  was 
something  in  Margaret  which  always  represented  la 
madre  to  Ossoli,  for  all  who  saw  them  together  re 
marked  on  the  "  veneration  "  which  was  a  part  of  his 
attitude  towards  her. 

The  constancy  of  Margaret's  Italian  lover  is  in 
striking  contrast  to  the  fickleness  of  Mary  Wollstone- 
craft's  American  captain.  Ossoli  was  constitutionally 
faithful  just  as  the  dashing  Imlay  was  constitutionally 
unfaithful.  Imlay's  behavior  conformed  to  that  of 
the  villain  in  the  moral  story-books,  but  Ossoli  demon 
strated  that  all  men  do  not  represent  invariably  the 
same  erotic  type. 

From  the  time  she  visited  Milan,  Margaret  was 
actively  involved  in  the  plans  for  the  Roman  revolu 
tion.  Her  efforts  had  been  enlisted  in  London,  where 
a  plan  had  been  formed,  though  for  some  reason  aban 
doned,  for  Mr.  Marcus  Spring's  party  to  smuggle 
Mazzini  into  Italy.  Once  settled  in  Rome  for  the 
winter,  Margaret  enlisted  her  lover  in  the  republican 
cause,  though  all  the  rest  of  his  family  were  intensely 
conservative.  He  became,  like  herself,  an  ardent  and 
loyal  supporter  of  Mazzini  and  his  party. 

From  January  until  Carnival,  Margaret  was  hardly 
able  to  leave  her  room.  She  attributed  her  ill-health 
to  the  miserable  weather  and  wrote  some  spirited 
accounts  of  the  "  unspeakably  dejecting "  Roman 


Her  Debt  to  Nature  163 

winter.  "  It  has  been  dark  all  day,  though  the  lamp 
has  only  been  lit  half  an  hour.  The  music  of  the  day 
has  been,  first  the  atrocious  arias,  which  last  in  the 
Corso  till  near  noon,  though  certainly  less  in  virulence 
on  rainy  days.  Then  came  the  wicked  organ-grinder, 
who,  apart  from  the  horror  of  the  noise,  grinds 
exactly  the  same  obsolete  abominations  as  at  home  or 
in  England.  .  .  .  Within,  the  three  pet  dogs  of  my 
landlady,  bereft  of  their  walk,  unable  to  employ  their 
miserable  legs  and  eyes,  exercise  themselves  by  a 
continual  barking,  which  is  answered  by  all  the  dogs 
in  the  neighborhood.  .  .  .  The  door-bell  rings. 
'Chi  e?'  'Who  is  it?'  cries  the  handmaid,  with 
unweariable  senselessness,  as  if  anyone  would  answer, 
Rogue,  or  Enemy,  instead  of  the  traditionary  Amico, 
Friend.  Can  it  be,  perchance,  a  letter,  news  of  home, 
or  some  of  the  many  friends  who  have  neglected  so 
long  to  write,  or  some  ray  of  hope  to  break  the  clouds 
of  the  difficult  Future?  Far  from  it.  Enter  a  man, 
poisoning  me  at  once  with  the  smell  of  the  worst  pos 
sible  cigars,  not  to  be  driven  out,  insisting  I  shall  look 
upon  frightful,  ill-cut  cameos,  and  worse-designed 
mosaics,  made  by  some  friend  of  his,  who  works  in  a 
chamber  and  will  sell  so  cheap.  Man  of  ill-odors  and 
meanest  smile!  I  am  no  countess  to  be  fooled  by 
you.  .  .  . 

"  Pour,  pour,  pour  again,  dark  as  night — many  peo- 


164  Margaret  Fuller 

pie  coming  in  to  see  me  because  they  don't  know 
what  to  do  with  themselves.  I  am  very  glad  to  see 
them  for  the  same  reason;  this  atmosphere  is  so 
heavy,  I  seem  to  carry  the  weight  of  the  world  on  my 
head  and  feel  unfitted  for  every  exertion.  As  to 
eating,  that  is  a  by-gone  thing;  wine,  coffee,  meat,  I 
have  resigned;  vegetables  are  few  and  hard  to  have, 
except  horrible  cabbage,  in  which  the  Romans  delight. 
A  little  rice  still  remains,  which  I  take  with  pleasure, 
remembering  it  growing  in  the  rich  fields  of  Lom- 
bardy,  so  green  and  full  of  glorious  light.  That  light 
fell  still  more  beautiful  on  the  tall  plantations  of  hemp, 
but  it  is  dangerous  just  at  present  to  think  of  what 
is  made  from  hemp." 

By  May  her  health  and  spirits  were  restored  and 
she  was  able  to  work  at  her  writing-table  again,  set 
ting  down  her  current  impressions.  "  I  sit  in  my 
obscure  corner,  and  watch  the  progress  of  events. 
.  .  .  Everything  confirms  me  in  my  radicalism ;  and, 
without  any  desire  to  hasten  matters,  indeed  with  sur 
prise  to  see  them  rush  so  like  a  torrent  I  seem  to  see 
them  tending  to  realize  my  own  hopes!  ...  It 
would  appear  that  the  political  is  being  merged  in  the 
social  struggle:  it  is  well." 

Early  in  the  summer,  Margaret  left  Rome  and 
went  up  into  the  Abruzzi  mountains.  She  settled  in 
Aquila,  planning  to  await  there  the  birth  of  her  child 


Her  Debt  to  Nature  165 

and  to  work  on  her  book.  June  in  Aquila  was  radi 
antly  beautiful.  "  I  am  in  the  midst  of  a  theater  of 
glorious  snow-crowned  mountains,  whose  pedestals 
are  garlanded  with  the  olive  and  mulberry,  and  along 
whose  sides  run  bridle-paths,  fringed  with  almond 
groves  and  vineyards.  The  valleys  are  yellow  with 
saffron  flowers;  the  grain  fields  enameled  with  the 
brilliant  blue  corn-flower  and  red  poppy.  .  .  .  The 
spirits  of  the  dead  crowd  me  in  most  solitary  places." 
Most  of  her  time  was  devoted  to  writing,  but  several 
hours  of  each  day  were  spent  out  of  doors,  in  walks 
or  in  riding  on  a  donkey.  She  amused  herself  by  tell 
ing  the  peasants  the  legends  of  their  own  saints  and 
the  peasants  were  disturbed  about  her.  "  E  sempre 
sola  soletta,"  they  said,  "  eh  perche?  " 

She  made  the  acquaintance  of  an  old  nobleman  who 
showed  her  in  his  family  archives  some  manuscript 
letters  of  Tasso.  But  as  the  summer  advanced  she 
grew  very  lonely.  "  If  it  were  only  possible  to  be 
nearer  to  you,"  she  wrote  to  Ossoli,  "  for,  except  for 
the  good  air  and  the  security,  this  place  does  not  please 
me."  In  July  she  moved  down  into  the  foot-hills,  and 
settled  herself  in  the  village  of  Rieti,  which  could  be 
reached  by  diligence  from  Rome  in  one  night's 
journey. 

In  Rieti,  her  hard  times  set  in.  At  first,  she  saw 
only  the  picturesque  side  of  her  retreat,  "  a  little,  red- 


1 66  Margaret  Fuller 

brown  nest/'  settled  by  the  aborigines  of  Italy,  "  long 
before  Rome  was."  ..."  The  rapid  Velino  makes 
almost  the  circuit  of  its  walls,  on  its  way  to  Terni. 
I  had  my  apartment  shut  out  from  the  family,  on  the 
bank  of  this  river,  and  saw  the  mountains,  as  I  lay 
on  my  restless  couch.  There  was  a  piazza,  too,  or, 
as  they  call  it  here,  a  loggia,  which  hung  over  the 
river,  where  I  walked  most  of  the  night,  for  I  could 
not  sleep  at  all  in  those  nights.  In  the  wild  autumn 
storms,  the  stream  became  a  roaring  torrent,  con 
stantly  lit  up  by  lightning  flashes,  and  the  sound  of  its 
rush  was  very  sublime.  I  see  it  yet  as  it  swept  away 
on  its  dark  green  current  the  heaps  of  burning  straw 
which  the  children  let  down  from  the  bridge."  Over 
this  bridge  came  the  diligence  from  Rome,  bringing 
letters  and  journals  from  Ossoli  and  sometimes,  on 
Sunday  mornings,  the  dark  young  captain  himself. 
"  Do  not  fail  to  come/'  says  one  of  Margaret's  letters, 
"  I  shall  have  your  coffee  warm.  You  will  arrive 
early,  and  I  can  see  the  diligence  pass  the  bridge  from 
my  window/' 

But  Rieti  was  a  village  and  in  some  respects  not 
unlike  Cambridgeport,  as  Margaret  discovered  to 
her  cost.  "At  the  barber's,  the  druggist's,  the 
cafe,  they  sit  and  digest  the  copious  slander,  chief 
product  of  this,  as  of  every  little  hive  of  men,"  she 
said.  Doubtless  they  suspected  some  irregularity  in 


Her  Debt  to  Nature  167 

the  relations  between  the  English  lady, — as  they  took 
her  to  be, — and  her  handsome  Roman  husband.  They 
also  thought  that  all  Inglesi  were  exceedingly  rich  and 
plundered  poor  Margaret  in  every  way.  These  im 
pressions  and  suspicions  prepared  the  way  for  serious 
consequences  when  Margaret  later  left  her  baby  there 
and  was  cut  off  from  all  communication  during  the 
siege  of  Rome. 

From  the  early  part  of  August,  the  child  was  ex 
pected.  And  now  a  sudden  turn  in  political  events 
threatened  to  deprive  Margaret  of  her  only  friend. 
Pio  Nono  ordered  the  civic  guard,  in  which  Ossoli 
was  now  captain,  to  go  to  the  defense  of  Bologna. 
"  My  state  is  the  most  deplorable  that  can  be,"  wrote 
the  young  man.  "  I  have  had  an  extraordinary 
struggle.  If  your  condition  were  not  such  as  it  is,  I 
could  decide  more  easily,  but  in  the  present  moment, 
I  cannot  leave  you."  To  which  Margaret  replied,  "If 
it  is  possible  for  you  to  wait  for  two  or  three  weeks, 
the  public  state  will  be  determined, — as  well  also 
mine, — and  you  can  make  your  decision  with  more 
tranquillity.  ...  It  troubles  me  much  that  I  can 
tell  you  nothing  certain  of  myself,  but  am  still  in  the 
same  waiting  state.  ...  If  you  do  not  come,  I  shall 
expect  a  letter  from  you  on  Sunday,  .  .  .  also  the 
last  of  those  Milanese  papers.  Poor  friends,  shut  up 
there.  I  wish  so  much  for  some  certain  intelligence  of 


1 68  Margaret  Fuller 

their  fate.  .  .  .  Adieu,  dear;  our  misfortunes  are 
many  and  unlocked  for,  not  often  does  destiny  demand 
a  greater  price  for  some  happy  moments.  Never  do 
I  repent  of  our  affection,  and  for  you,  if  not  for  me, 
I  hope  that  life  has  still  some  good  in  store." 

The  Pope  rescinded  the  order  to  the  troops,  and 
Margaret,  in  her  great  relief,  found  herself  a  little 
better.  But  she  could  not  take  much  satisfaction  in 
the  fact.  "  It  troubles  me  that  this  seems  rather  an 
indication  that  I  must  wait  yet  longer/*  she  wrote. 
"  Wait!  That  is  always  hard.  But — if  I  were  sure 
of  doing  well — I  should  wish  much  to  pass  through 
this  trial  before  your  arrival;  yet  when  I  think  that 
it  is  possible  for  me  to  die  alone,  without  the  touch 
of  one  dear  hand,  I  wish  to  wait  yet  longer." 

The  child  was  born  on  Tuesday,  September  5,  1848. 
He  was  baptized  with  the  name  of  Angelo  Eugene 
Philip,  for  his  father,  his  mother's  brother  Eugene, 
and  the  late  Marquese,  his  grandfather.  On  Thurs 
day,  the  mother  was  tormented  by  his  crying;  on 
Saturday,  she  began  to  take  pleasure  in  watching  him ; 
at  the  end  of  twelve  days,  she  was  tracing  resem 
blances  to  his  father  and  herself.  At  the  end  of  three 
weeks,  she  was  quite  in  love  with  him.  The  thought 
of  leaving  him  with  strangers  became  most  painful. 
"  He  is  always  so  charming,  how  can  I  ever,  ever 
leave  him  ?  I  wake  in  the  night,  I  look  at  him,  I  think, 


Her  Debt  to  Nature  169 

oh!  it  is  impossible  to  leave  him."  She  was  pleased 
that  the  child  was  a  boy,  though  she  could  not  justify 
her  partiality.  "  As  was  Eve,  at  first,  I  suppose  every 
mother  is  delighted  by  the  birth  of  a  man-child.  There 
is  a  hope  that  he  will  conquer  more  ill  and  effect  more 
good,  than  is  expected  from  girls.  This  prejudice  in 
favor  of  man  does  not  seem  to  be  destroyed  by  his 
shortcomings  for  ages."  In  the  solitude  and  loneli 
ness  of  Rieti,  the  tendency  was  for  her  to  center  all 
her  affection  and  attention  upon  the  child;  so  that, 
after  an  absence  from  him,  she  had  to  admit  that  the 
removal  of  her  maternal  solicitude  had  not  been  alto 
gether  bad  for  him.  "  I  see  that  he  is  more  serene, 
is  less  sensitive,  than  with  me,  and  sleeps  better,"  she 
said,  on  her  return  after  a  separation. 

Early  in  November,  when  the  mountains  and  ra 
vines  were  covered  with  snow,  Margaret  returned  to 
Rome.  The  baby  was  left  with  his  wet-nurse  who  put 
him  into  little  black  caps  and  made  him  into  a  real 
peasant  bambino.  Margaret's  journey  proved  a  dan 
gerous  one,  for  the  Tiber  had  overflowed  its  banks 
and  the  approaches  to  Rome  were  swimming  in  water. 
Meadows  and  roads  shone  like  a  sheet  of  silver  in  the 
moonlight.  Swimming  and  plunging,  the  horses 
reached  the  gate  at  last  and  the  diligence  was  stopped 
by  the  customs  officers.  Margaret  alighted  and 
walked  to  the  Villa  Ludovisi  and  stood  looking  at  the 


170  Margaret  Fuller 

dark  myrtle  shrubberies  and  the  pale  statues  under  the 
Roman  moon.  Her  principal  emotion  was  surprise  at 
finding  herself  again  alive  and  well  in  the  city  she  so 
much  loved.  "  Is  it  not  cruel  that  I  cannot  earn  six 
hundred  dollars  a  year  living  here  ?  "  was  her  pas 
sionate  thought. 

She  took  a  room  at  No.  60,  Piazza,  Barberini,  the 
"  quiet,  little  upper  chamber "  in  which  Mrs.  Story 
tells  of  finding  her  in  March,  1849.  Here  Margaret 
spent  the  winter  working  on  her  history  of  contempo 
rary  events  and  sending  long  and  detailed  accounts 
to  the  columns  of  the  Tribune.  Her  circumstances 
seemed  unchanged,  though  it  was  apparent  to  the 
Storys  that  she  lived  in  the  most  extreme  poverty. 
The  faithful  Ossoli  was  as  usual  in  attendance  and 
the  Storys  were  aware  that  the  two  were  on  an  inti 
mate  footing.  For  Margaret  wrote  to  William  Story 
in  November  soon  after  her  return  to  Rome,  "  I  have 
.  .  .  passed  this  past  month  of  fine  weather  most 
delightfully  in  revisiting  my  haunts  of  the  autumn 
before.  Then,  too,  I  was  uncommonly  well  and 
strong;  it  was  the  golden  period  of  my  Roman  life. 
...  To  you  I  may  tell,  that  I  always  go  with 
Ossoli,  the  most  congenial  companion  I  ever  had  for 
jaunts  of  this  kind.  We  go  out  in  the  morning,  car 
rying  the  roast  chestnuts  from  Rome;  the  bread  and 
wine  are  found  in  some  lonely  little  osteria ;  and  so 


Her  Debt  to  Nature  171 

we  dine;  and  reach  Rome  again,  just  in  time  to  see  it, 
from  a  little  distance,  gilded  by  the  sunset." 

But  it  was  not  until  summer,  during  the  terrible 
month  of  the  siege,  that  Margaret  told  Mrs.  Story 
about  her  marriage  and  the  child's  existence. 

In  the  summer,  communication  with  Rieti  became 
irregular  and  was  finally  broken  off.  "  I  often  seemed 
to  hear  Angelino  calling  to  me  amid  the  roar  of  the 
cannon  and  always  his  tone  was  of  crying,"  writes 
Margaret.  Day  after  day,  she  stood  in  the  long  queue 
at  the  post-office  under  the  burning  sun,  but  no  news 
came.  Her  remittances  to  Rieti  had  stopped;  there 
was  no  longer  any  way  of  sending  money,  even  if  she 
had  had  any,  which  is  doubtful.  The  ignorant  foster- 
mother  at  Rieti,  not  unnaturally  disposed  to  suspect 
the  motives  of  Nino's  mysterious  parents,  became 
alarmed  and  wrote  a  letter  to  Margaret  in  which  she 
threatened  to  abandon  the  child  altogether  if  money 
was  not  sent  immediately.  The  money,  wherever  it 
came  from,  was  instantly  dispatched;  perhaps  it  was 
the  Storys  who  came  to  the  rescue.  Margaret  after 
wards  declared  that  all  her  work  during  the  months 
of  separation  from  her  child  had  been  valueless.  "  Of 
at  least  two  volumes  written  at  that  time,  no  line 
seems  of  any  worth  .  .  .  the  position  of  a  mother 
separated  from  her  only  child  is  too  frightfully  un 
natural."  And  yet  at  the  end  of  this  harrowing 


172  Margaret  Fuller 

experience,  when  the  siege  was  over  and  the  republic 
in  ruins,  Margaret  waited  to  send  Mazzini  out  of  the 
city  into  safety  before  she  went  to  the  rescue  of  her 
little  Nino.  A  mother  is  after  all  a  complex  human 
being. 

At  one  time,  fearing  that  both  Ossoli  and  herself 
might  succumb  to  the  bombardment,  Margaret  begged 
the  Storys  to  take  care  of  Angelino.  The  certificate 
which  she  showed  to  Mrs.  Story  on  this  occasion  and 
which  Mrs.  Story  afterwards  described  is  impossible 
to  explain.  It  was  written  in  Latin  on  parchment  and 
signed  by  a  priest;  and  it  stated  that  Angelo  Eugene 
Ossoli  was  the  legal  heir  of  whatever  title  and  for 
tune  should  come  to  his  father.  This  was  the  paper 
which  Mr.  Higginson  referred  to  as  a  marriage  cer 
tificate,  thereby  provoking  from  McPhail  the  sardonic 
comment  that  "  the  name  of  the  heir  is  not  usually 
specified  in  such  writings."  The  impressive-looking 
document,  which  Margaret  herself  may  have  helped 
to  compose  and  which  was  signed  by  the  priest  who 
had  married  them,  was  a  pathetic  and  ineffectual 
attempt  on  her  part  to  outwit  what  she  referred  to  as 
the  "  social  inquisition  of  the  United  States."  A 
good  strong  lie  would  have  served  her  better  but  it 
was  not  in  her  nature.  Because  her  conscience  was  so 
clear,  she  could  not  feel  the  necessity  for  denying  her 
actions. 


Her  Debt  to  Nature  1173 

When  the  news  of  Margaret's  marriage  reached 
America  in  the  fall  of  1849,  Fredrika  Bremer  was 
staying  with  the  Springs  in  New  York.  Not  having 
known  Margaret  personally,  she  was  present  at  the 
social  inquisition  in  the  role,  more  or  less,  of  an  out 
sider.  In  her  letters  to  her  sister  she  gives  us  glimpses 
of  what  occurred.  "  A  report  has  reached  this  coun 
try  that  she  [Margaret  Fuller]  has  connected  herself 
with  a  young  man, — she  herself  is  no  longer  young, 
being  upward  of  forty, — and  a  Fourierist  or  socialist 
marriage,  without  the  external  ceremony,  is  spoken 
of;  certain  it  is  that  the  marriage  remained  secret, 
and  that  she  has  a  child,  a  boy.  .  .  .  All  this  has 
furnished  subject  for  much  conversation  among  her 
friends  and  her  enemies." 

At  first  Fredrika  was  inclined  to  side  with  those 
who  suspected  the  worst — whatever  the  worst  might 
be.  "  Margaret  Fuller,'*  she  informed  her  sister, 
"  has  in  her  writings  asserted  the  right  of  wroman  to 
her  own  free  development,  and  to  liberty  in  many  cases 
where,  although  conformable  to  the  strictest  moral 
code,  it  would  yet  be  offensive  to  many  in  this  so- 
called  free  country."  But  later  on,  she  professed  to 
be  entirely  convinced  that  Margaret's  marriage  was 
quite  regular  and  conventional  and  enthusiastically 
told  her  sister  that  later  news  had  vindicated  the  loyal 
trust  of  Margaret's  old  friends.  As  one  reads 


174  Margaret  Fuller 

Fredrika's  second  letter,  one  can  imagine  the  kind 
and  affectionate  Springs  had  been  at  work  behind  the 
scenes.  They  also  sent  Margaret  a  check  as  a  present 
for  her  little  boy. 

But  there  still  remained  one  question  which  puzzled 
Fredrika.  She  had  heard  the  pros  and  cons  in  the 
social  inquisition  and  now  she  was  allowed  to  read 
Margaret's  letters  to  Rebecca  Spring,  in  which  the 
champion  of  woman's  rights  described  her  experiences 
with  love  and  maternity.  "  She  had  been  described 
to  me  as  not  sufficiently  feminine,"  says  Fredrika, 
puzzled.  "  She  seems  to  me  almost  too  much  so,  too 
much  concentered  in  that  one  phase  of  her  being." 

The  one  question  which,  it  appears,  neither  Fred 
rika  nor  the  inquisition  propounded  to  themselves 
was  this:  after  all,  what  is  feminine? 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  REVOLUTIONIST 

As  Margaret  repeatedly  declared,  her  heart  and  her 
ambition  were  not  in  her  writing.  They  were  in 
politics.  She  was  an  excellent  conspirator,  combin- 
ing,  as  she  did,  a  perfectly  sincere  and  truthful 
nature  with  the  utmost  self-control  in  the  keeping  of 
secrets.  Emerson  referred  to  this  quality  of  hers  in 
the  letter  of  introduction  which  he  sent  to  Carlyle.  "  I 
need  not,  and  yet  perhaps  I  need  say,  that  M.  F.  is 
the  safest  of  all  possible  persons  who  ever  took  pen 
in  hand;  Prince  Metternich's  closet  not  closer  nor  half 
so  honorable/*  This  recommendation  had  less  interest 
perhaps  for  the  Carlyles  than  it  had  for  Mazzini 
whom  she  met  at  their  house.  The  Chief  had 
great  need  of  safe  and  reliable  friends  in  those  days, 
when  he  controlled  a  whispering  gallery  which  ran 
from  London  to  Italy  and  could  outstrip  the  govern 
ment  itself  in  the  speed  of  its  messages. 

Mazzini  trusted  women  especially.  He  said  that 
he  inherited  his  "  republican  instincts "  from  his 
mother,  and  in  his  long  life  of  exile  and  loneliness, 
women  were  among  his  closest  friends  and  counsellors. 

175 


1 76  Margaret  Fuller 

Jane  Carlyle,  George  Sand,  Giulia  Modena,  and  Mar 
garet  Fuller  were  among  his  conspicuous  and  influential 
friends.  He  preached  feminism  to  the  Italian  work- 
ingmen,  who  needed  it  sadly  enough,  in  all  truth,  in 
these  words :  "  Love  and  respect  woman.  Look  to  her 
not  only  for  comfort,  but  for  strength  and  inspiration 
and  the  redoubling  of  your  intellectual  and  moral 
powers.  Blot  out  from  your  mind  any  idea  of  supe 
riority  ;  you  have  none.  There  is  no  inequality  between 
man  and  woman;  but  as  often  is  the  case  between 
two  men,  only  different  tendencies  and  special  voca 
tions.  Woman  and  man  are  two  notes  without  which 
the  human  chord  cannot  be  struck." 

And  in  England,  he  preached  George  Sand  to  the 
prudish  public  opinion — which  again  was  sadly  in 
need  of  his  peculiar  mission.  "  Thanks  be  to  God," 
he  said,  "  George  Sand  is  a  woman.  ...  In  the 
question  ...  of  the  emancipation  of  woman,  of 
the  determination  of  her  duties  and  her  rights  in  the 
world,  the  materials  for  decision  were  wanting  to  us. 
.  .  .  All  that  she  feels,  all  that  she  dreams,  all  that 
she  pursues;  what  sanctifies  her  or  makes  her  free, 
what  weighs  upon  her  and  transforms  her  true  nature, 
in  the  present  arrangement  of  society,  a  woman  only 
could  tell  us.  ...  Madame  Sand  is  the  first  who 
has  boldly  entered  the  arena.  .  .  .  As  a  woman,  she 
has  declared  to  us  the  secret  of  her  sex,  its  inward 


The  Revolutionist  177 

life  in  all  its  phases,  under  all  circumstances,  and  she 
has  thus  prepared  the  way  to  a  just  conception  of  the 
special  mission  reserved  to  her  sex — of  the  duties  and 
special  rights  which  have  fallen  to  its  share." 

A  man  who  could  write  like  this  could  not  fail  to 
win  Margaret's  allegiance.  From  the  first  moment  of 
meeting  him  in  London,  she  was  absolutely  devoted. 
In  a  certain  sense,  she  was  more  strongly  attached  to 
Mazzini  than  she  was  to  Ossoli,  and  if  she  had  had 
to  choose  between  them,  Ossoli  would  certainly  have 
been  left  in  peace  with  his  conservative  family.  Mar 
garet  was  with  the  Chief  against  the  world.  One 
evening  in  London  Mazzini  was  with  her  when 
Carlyle,  having  just  returned  from  a  visit  to  Lord 
Ashburton's,  also  called.  Margaret  sat  by  silently 
while  Carlyle  belabored  Mazzini's  idealism  with  scorn 
and  invective.  Jane  Carlyle  was  also  present,  and 
also  silent.  "  We  all  felt  distant  from  him,"  says 
Margaret,  naively  including  Carlyle's  wife.  At  last 
Mrs.  Carlyle  turned  to  Margaret  and  said,  "  These  are 
but  opinions  to  Carlyle;  but  to  Mazzini,  who  has 
given  his  all,  and  helped  bring  his  friends  to  the  scaf 
fold  in  pursuit  of  such  subjects,  it  is  a  matter  of  life 
and  death." 

While  the  revolution  in  Rome  was  at  its  height  and 
Mazzini  was  hard  pressed  by  enemies  and  weighted 
by  discouragements,  Margaret  one  day  sent  him  a 


178  Margaret  Fuller 

letter  which  has  been  often  quoted  by  Mazzini's 
biographers  as  typical  of  the  warm  loyalty  he  inspired 
in  women.  "  What  emboldens  me,"  she  wrote,  "  is 
the  persuasion  that  the  best  friends,  in  point  of  sym 
pathy  and  intelligence, — the  only  friends  of  a  man  of 
ideas  and  of  marked  character, — must  be  women. 
You  have  your  mother,  no  doubt  you  have  others, 
perhaps  many.  Of  that,  I  know  nothing;  only  I  like 
to  offer  also  my  tribute  of  affection.  When  I  think 
that  only  two  years  ago  you  thought  of  coming  into 
Italy  with  us  in  disguise,  it  seems  very  glorious  that 
you  are  about  to  enter  republican  Rome  as  a  Roman 
citizen.  .  .  . 

"  Dear  Mazzini, — you  do  not  return  to  sleep  under 
the  sod  of  Italy,  but  to  see  your  thoughts  springing 
up  all  over  the  soil.  .  .  .  You  speak  of  '  few  and 
late  years ',  but  some  full  ones  still  remain.  A  cen 
tury  is  not  needed,  nor  should  the  same  man,  in  the 
same  form  of  thought,  work  too  long  on  an  age.  He 
would  mold  and  bind  it  too  much  to  himself.  .  .  ,: 
Men  like  you,  appointed  ministers,  must  not  be  less 
earnest  in  their  work.  Yet  to  the  greatest,  the  day, 
the  moment  is  all  their  kingdom.  God  takes  care  of 
the  increase.  Farewell !  For  your  sake  I  could  wish 
at  this  moment  to  be  an  Italian  and  a  man  of  action." 

It  has  been  said  that  Mazzini's  political  ideas  were 
all  contained  in  the  writings  of  Dante.  If  this  be  true, 


The  Revolutionist  179 

his  leading  ideas  had  been  familiar  to  Margaret  from 
her  earliest  youth.  He  was  to  her  the  new  incarna 
tion  of  the  republican  tradition  which  had  been  wor 
shiped  by  father  and  daughter  in  the  Groton  farm 
house.  The  defender  of  Brutus  and  the  lover  of 
Beethoven  had  naturally  developed  into  the  disciple 
of  Mazzini.  The  ideals  which  blazed  forth  in  the  fiery 
pamphlets  of  "  Young  Italy  "  she  had  long  ago  learned 
to  reverence  in  Cambridgeport,  when  Timothy  Fuller 
fared  forth  to  air  them  in  Fourth  of  July  orations. 

Rome  was  a  part  of  Mazzini's  religion.  "  Rome 
has  always  been  a  sort  of  talisman  for  me,"  he  said. 
He  believed  that  it  was  the  mission  of  Rome  to  lead 
in  the  social  regeneration  of  Europe.  "After  the 
Rome  of  the  Emperors,  after  the  Rome  of  the  Popes, 
will  come  the  Rome  of  the  People."  The  people,  he 
believed,  must  form  the  universal  family;  and  only 
after  the  republicanization  and  unification  of  Europe 
would  true  social  equality  be  possible.  He  had  the 
passionate  patriotism  of  the  exile,  desiring  intensely 
that  Italy  should  become  the  first  republic  of  Europe. 
For  the  realization  of  these  ideals,  he  gave  up  the 
quiet  literary  vocation  which  appealed  so  strongly  to 
him  and  assumed  the  toils  and  burdens  of  a  political 
agitator  and  revolutionary  leader.  Considering  Maz 
zini's  position  in  history,  it  is  rather  surprising  to  find 
Emerson  writing  to  Margaret  at  the  climax  of 


i8o  Margaret  Fuller 

Mazzini's  career  in  Rome  and  asking  her  if  she  did 
not  wish  that  Italy  had  a  great  man.  Emerson  evi 
dently  took  Mazzini  at  Carlyle's  valuation.  Margaret 
replied  without  hesitation,  "  Mazzini  is  a  great  man. 
In  mind,  a  great  poetic  statesman;  in  heart,  a  lover; 
in  action,  decisive  and  full  of  resource  as  Caesar." 

Early  in  March  of  1849,  Mazzini  came  to  Rome  and 
went  at  once  to  visit  Margaret  in  her  quiet  little  upper 
chamber  in  the  Piazza  Barberini.  Ossoli  was  present, 
and  Mazzini  confided  to  them  thus  early  his  fears  for 
the  ultimate  success  of  the  revolution.  The  next  day, 
Margaret  wrote  to  Marcus  Spring,  "  Last  night  Maz 
zini  came  to  see  me.  You  will  have  heard  how  he 
was  called  to  Italy,  and  received  at  Leghorn  like  a 
prince,  as  he  is.  It  is  expected  that,  if  the  republic 
lasts,  he  will  be  President.  .  .  . 

"  The  labels  bearing,  in  giant  letters,  Giuseppe 
Mazzini,  cittadino  Romano,  are  yet  up  all  over  Rome. 
.  .  .  Last  night  I  heard  a  ring ;  then  somebody  speak 
my  name ;  the  voice  struck  upon  me  at  once.  ...  He 
stayed  two  hours,  and  we  talked,  though  rapidly,  of 
everything.  ...  If  anyone  can  save  Italy  from  her 
foes,  inward  and  outward,  it  will  be  he.  But  he  is 
very  doubtful  whether  this  is  possible;  the  foes  are 
too  many,  too  strong,  too  subtle."  This  was  Mar 
garets  account  of  the  visit.  Presumably  she  told  him 
about  her  personal  affairs  and  the  child  at  Rieti  on 


The  Revolutionist  181 

this  occasion,  for  she  had  friends  within  the  revolu 
tionary  party  who  knew  about  her  situation  all  the 
time.  Naturally  she  would  have  told  her  story^  to 
the  amiable  Italian,  as  he  was  known  to  have  the 
gift  of  receiving  confidences  from  his  women 
friends. 

It  was  worthy  of  Margaret's  critical  intelligence 
that  she  could  see  the  shortcomings  of  her  idol  and 
frankly  define  his  limitations.  She  herself  never  lost 
sight  of  the  economic  aspect  of  public  events.  In  her 
study  of  the  position  of  her  sex,  she  had  emphasized 
the  effect  of  economic,  much  more  than  the  effect  of 
political,  subjection,  and,  to  her  mind,  Mazzini  did 
not  sufficiently  concern  himself  with  economic  factors. 
While  Mazzini  lingered  with  the  spirit  of  English 
liberalism,  Margaret's  mind  was  sweeping  forward 
with  the  current  of  French  socialism.  One  finds  her 
writing  to  the  Tribune  like  this :  "  Mazzini  has  a  mind 
far  in  advance  of  his  times  in  general,  and  his  nation 
in  particular.  .  .  .  And  yet  Mazzini  sees  not  all; 
he  aims  at  political  emancipation ;  but  he  sees  not,  per 
haps  would  deny,  the  bearing  of  some  events,  which 
even  now  begin  to  work  their  way.  Of  this,  more 
anon;  but  not  today,  nor  in  the  small  print  of  the 
Tribune.  Suffice  it  to  say,  I  allude  to  that  of  which 
the  cry  of  Communism,  the  system  of  Fourier,  and 
so  forth  are  but  forerunners/'  Margaret  foresaw  that 


1 82  Margaret  Fuller 

the  "  man  of  property "  [her  phrase]  in  France 
would  crush  the  Roman  revolution  with  the  assistance 
of  the  "  rich  English  traveler,"  who  "  thinks  of  his 
own  twenty-mile  park  and  the  crowded  village  of 
beggars  at  its  gate  and  muses :  '  I  hope  to  see  them  all 
shot  yet,  these  rascally  republicans  V 

In  this  point  of  view,  Margaret  stood  with  Italian 
revolutionists  like  the  Princess  Belgiojoso.  Her  close 
association  with  this  titled  lady  helped  somewhat  to 
gloss  over  her  adventures  in  the  eyes  of  the  "  social 
inquisition."  But  those  Americans  who  regarded 
Margaret  as  a  female  Garibaldi  should  have  known 
the  career  of  the  Milanese  Princess.  She  had  the 
combined  aggressiveness  of  a  Florence  Nightingale 
and  an  Emma  Goldman.  Henry  James  says  she  was 
something  of  a  "  bounder,"  but  then  one  has  to  re 
member  that  Henry  James  used  such  words  to  de 
scribe,  not  condemn.  Certainly  Christine  Trivulzio  of 
Belgiojoso  was  one  of  the  most  assertive  of  her  sex. 
She  had  everything:  rank,  fortune,  brains,  and  per- 
r-^onality;  and  she  spent  them  all  in  the  service  of 
the  revolution.  In  Milan,  she  conducted  a  socialist 
experiment  on  her  estate  ^published'pQlitical  pamphlets 
and  wrote  them  and  supported  a  radical  newspaper; 
and  maintained  a  company  of  soldiers  in  the  Milanese 
uprising.  After  a  long  exile  in  Paris,  she  returned  to 
aid  Mazzini  in  Rome;  and  when  all  was  lost,  fled  to 


J 


The  Revolutionist  183 

Constantinople  and  earned  her  living  by  teaching  lan 
guages. 

When  the  siege  of  Rome  began  in  April,  1849,  she 
took  charge  of  the  hospitals  and  put  them  in  order. 
It  was  no  small  feat.  The  priests,  who  had  been  in 
charge,  were  turned  out  and  a  regime  of  women  was 
installed.  With  a  genius  for  organization,  the  Princess 
revolutionized  the  hospitals  within  forty-eight  hours 
and  reduced  them  to  a  state  of  cleanliness,  order,  and 
discipline  hitherto  unheard  of.  In  this  exploit,  she 
was  the  forerunner  of  Florence  Nightingale,  who, 
some  years  later,  reformed  the  hospitals  at  Scutari. 
But  with  the  failure  of  the  revolution,  the  priests 
moved  in  again  and  the  old  disorder  and  misrule  again 
prevailed,  as  if  no  demonstration  of  a  better  way  had 
ever  taken  place.  •*—  / 

Margaret  Fuller  was  one  of  the  chief  assistants  of  1 
this  organizing  Princess.  On  April  30,  Margaret  re 
ceived  the  following  communication :  "  Dear  Miss 
Fuller: — You  are  named  Regolatrice  of  the  Hospital 
of  the  Fate-Bene  Fratelli.  Go  there  at  twelve,  if  the 
alarm  bell  has  not  rung  before.  When  you  arrive 
there,  you  will  receive  all  the  women  coming  for  the 
wounded,  and  give  them  your  directions,  so  that  you 
are  sure  to  have  a  certain  number  of  them  night  and 
day.  May  God  help  us. — Christine  Trivulzio  of 
Belgiojoso." 


184  Margaret  Fuller 

This  was  Margaret's  official  position  throughout 
the  siege.  She  spent  eight  hours  daily  in  the  wards 
and  frequently  added  night  duty  as  well.  Her  self- 
sacrificing  devotion  to  the  wounded  and  their  grateful 
appreciation  of  her  services  has  been  dwelt  upon  at 
length  by  her  biographers.  It  was  a  part  of  her 
peculiar  gift  to  inspire  young  men  with  courage.  But 
nursing  was  not  after  all  her  especial  contribution. 
Her  opportunity  was  the  revolution  itself  and  her  task 
was  its  vindication. 

But,  while  she  pleaded  for  Mazzini's  ideals  in  her 
New  York  newspaper,  her  soul  was  privately  appalled 
at  the  terrible  human  cost.  She  wrote  to  William 
Henry  Channing,  "  You  say,  you  are  glad  I  have  had 
this  great  opportunity  for  carrying  out  my  principles. 
Would  it  were  so!  I  found  myself  inferior  in  forti 
tude  and  courage  to  the  occasion.  I  know  not  how 
to  bear  the  havoc  and  anguish  incident  to  the  struggle 
for  these  principles.  I  rejoiced  that  it  lay  not  with 
me  to  cut  down  the  trees,  to  destroy  the  Elysian  gar 
dens,  for  the  defense  of  Rome;  I  do  not  know  that  I 
could  have  done  it.  And  the  sight  of  those  far  nobler 
growths,  the  beautiful  young  men,  mown  down  in 
their  stately  prime,  became  too  much  for  me.  I  for 
got  the  great  ideas  to  sympathize  with  the  poor 
mothers,  who  had  nursed  their  precious  forms,  only 
to  see  them  all  lopped  and  gashed."  For  the  first  time, 


The  Revolutionist  185 

she  was  alienated  in  spirit  from  Mazzini;  as  the 
dreadful  battle  proceeded  she  saw  less  and  less  of 
him.  A  letter  from  Rebecca  Spring,  who  was  a 
Quaker  pacifist,  moved  her  to  write  a  half-hearted 
defense  of  Mazzini's  course,  but  she  could  not  keep 
up  her  martial  spirit  to  the  end.  "  Yet  the  agonies 
of  that  baptism  of  blood,  I  feel,  oh,  how  deeply!  In 
the  golden  June  days  of  Rome,  consistent  in  no  way, 
I  felt  I  should  have  shrunk  back — I  could  not  have 
had  it  shed." 

Meanwhile  her  letters  to  the  Tribune  gave  a 
spirited  narrative  of  events.  Her  description  of  the 
demonstration  on  the  Quirinal  which  preceded  the 
Pope's  flight  to  Gaeta  is  a  typical  example  of  her 
vigorous  pictures.  "  I  returned  to  the  house,  which  is 
near  the  Quirinal.  On  one  side,  I  could  see  the  palace 
and  gardens  of  the  Pope,  on  the  other  the  Piazza 
Barberini  and  street  of  the  Four  Fountains.  Pres 
ently  I  saw  the  carriage  of  Prince  Barberini  drive  hur 
riedly  into  his  courtyard  gate,  the  footman  signing  to 
close  it,  a  discharge  of  firearms  was  heard,  and  the 
drums  of  the  Civic  Guard  beat  to  arms. 

"  The  padrona  ran  up  and  down,  crying  with  every 
round  of  shot,  '  Jesu  Maria,  they  are  killing  the  Pope! 
O  poor  Holy  Father! — Tito,  Tito/  (out  of  the  win 
dow  to  her  husband),  '  what  is  the  matter?  ' 

"  The  lord  of  creation  disdained  to  reply. 


1 86  Margaret '  Fuller 

"  '  O  Signora !  pray,  pray,  ask  Tito  what  is  the 
matter?' 

"  I  did  so. 

"  '  I  don't  know,  Signora;  nobody  knows.' 

"  '  Why  don't  you  go  on  the  mount  and  see  ?  ' 

"  *  It  would  be  an  imprudence,  Signora ;  nobody 
will  go.' 

"  I  was  just  thinking  to  go  myself,  when  I  saw  a 
poor  man  borne  by,  badly  wounded,  and  heard  that 
the  Swiss  were  firing  on  the  people." 

On  the  9th  of  February,  1849,  at  one  o'clock  in 
the  morning  the  Republic  was  proclaimed,  to  the  ring 
ing  of  all  the  bells  of  Rome.  Margaret  did  not 
idealize  the  situation  but  grasped  its  sordid  realities. 
"  Early  next  morning  I  rose  and  went  forth  to  ob 
serve  the  Republic.  Over  the  Quirinal  I  went,  through 
the  Forum,  to  the  Capitol.  There  was  nothing  to  be 
seen  except  the  magnificent  calm  emperor,  the  tamers 
of  horses,  the  fountain,  the  trophies,  the  lions,  as 
usual;  among  the  marbles,  for  living  figures,  a  few 
dirty,  bold  women,  and  Murillo  boys  in  the  sun  just  as 
usual.  I  passed  into  the  Corso ;  there  were  men  in  the 
liberty-caps, — of  course  the  lowest  and  vilest  had  been 
the  first  to  assume  it;  all  the  horrible  beggars  perse 
cuting  as  impudently  as  usual."  Then  she  went  to 
hear  Mazzini  address  the  Assembly.  "  He  said,  '  We 
will  conquer; '  whether  Rome  will,  this  time,  is  not  to 


The  Revolutionist  187 

me  certain,  but  such  men  as  Mazzini  conquer  always, 
conquer  in  defeat."  She  believed  in  the  march  of 
the  republic  through  Europe  and  prophesied  it  in 
these  words :  "  The  struggle  is  now  fairly  thoroughly 
commenced,  between  the  principle  of  democracy  and 
the  old  powers,  no  longer  legitimate.  That  struggle 
may  last  fifty  years,  and  the  earth  be  watered  with 
the  blood  and  tears  of  more  than  one  generation,  but 
the  result  is  sure.  All  Europe,  including  Great  Britain, 
where  the  most  bitter  resistance  of  all  will  be  made, 
is  to  be  under  republican  government  in  the  next 
century." 

It  fell  to  her  share  to  counteract  the  propaganda 
stories  about  anarchy  and  disorder  in  Rome.  As  the 
interventionists  closed  in  on  the  republic,  these  "  fe, 
fo,  fum  stories  ",  as  she  called  them,  multiplied.  In 
dignantly,  she  declared  how  she,  a  woman,  alone  and 
unprotected,  went  about  from  one  end  of  Rome  to 
the  other  with  perfect  security  and  that  her  friends 
sent  out  their  little  children  with  nurses  as  usual. 
Never  had  there  been  so  little  crime, — "  never  was 
Rome  so  truly  tranquil,  so  nearly  free  from  gross  ill, 
as  this  winter."  She  exposed  the  methods  by  which 
the  Oscurantists  and  interventionists  sought  to  pro 
mote  riots  and  disorder.  For  example,  men  who  ap 
peared  in  the  street  and  attracted  a  crowd  by  behaving 
as  if  they  were  famishing,  were  arrested  by  the  Civic 


1 88  Margaret  Fuller 

Guard  and  proved  to  be  well-paid  agents.  A  ridicu 
lous  story  which  appeared  in  foreign  newspapers  to 
the  effect  that  red  flags  were  on  all  the  Roman  houses 
as  a  sign  that  the  Romans  were  athirst  for  blood  drew 
forth  a  humorous  protest, — "  These  flags  are  put  up 
at  the  entrance  of  those  streets  where  there  is  no  bar 
ricade  as  a  signal  to  coachmen  and  horsemen  that  they 
may  pass  freely.  There  is  one  on  the  house  where 
I  am,  in  which  is  no  person  but  myself,  who  thirst 
for  peace,  and  the  Padrone,  who  thirsts  for 
money." 

Her  description  of  the  excellent  morale  of  the  poor 
people  under  the  humane  influence  of  the  republic  was 
keyed  to  their  own  psychology :  "  Yes,  it  is  true,  they 
cry ;  ...  we  ought  not  to  lie ;  we  should  not  try  to 
impose  upon  one  another.  We  ought  rather  to  prefer 
that  our  children  should  work  honestly  for  their 
bread,  than  get  it  by  cheating,  begging,  or  the  prosti 
tution  of  their  mothers.  It  would  be  better  to  act 
worthily  and  kindly,  probably  would  please  God  more 
than  the  kissing  of  relics.  We  have  long  darkly  felt 
these  things  were  so,  now  we  know  it."  Yet  her  keen 
observation  and  honest  judgment  would  not  permit  her 
to  pass  over  in  silence  the  "  mob  of  Rome,"  the 
"  unheeding  cabbage-sellers,  who  never  had  a  thought 
before  beyond  contriving  how  to  satisfy  their  animal 
instincts  for  the  day." 


The  Revolutionist  189 

Without  much  hope,  perhaps,  she  tried  to  induce 
her  country  to  recognize  the  Roman  republic.  Repub 
lics  were  few  in  those  days, — she  thought  they  should 
hang  together.  "  Some  of  the  lowest  people  have 
asked  me,"  she  wrote,  " '  Is  it  not  true  that  your 
country  had  a  war  to  become  free?  ' — 'Yes/ — *  Then 
why  do  they  not  feel  for  us  ?  '  She  stated  the  case 
for  recognition  in  straightforward  American  terms. 
[(  The  suffrage  has  been  correct  here,  the  proportion 
of  votes  to  the  whole  population  was  much  larger 
.  .  .  than  it  is  in  our  own  country  at  the  time  of 
contested  elections.  ...  If  any  misrepresentations 
have  induced  America  to  believe,  as  France  affects  to 
have  believed,  that  so  large  a  vote  could  have  been 
obtained  by  moral  intimidation,  the  present  unanimity 
of  the  population  in  resisting  such  immense  odds,  and 
the  enthusiasm  of  their  every  expression  in  favor  of 
the  present  government,  puts  the  matter  beyond  a 
doubt.  .  .  .  Since  this  is  the  case,  surely  our  coun 
try,  if  no  other,  is  bound  to  recognize  the  present  gov 
ernment  so  long  as  it  can  sustain  itself/'  But  the 
attitude  of  the  nations  was  just  the  opposite.  The 
best  blood  of  Rome,  she  said  bitterly,  would  "  run 
along  the  stones,  without  one  nation  in  the  world  to 
defend,  one  to  aid, — scarce  one  to  cry  out  a  tardy 
'  Shame ' !  We  will  wait,  whisper  the  nations,  and 
see  if  they  can  bear  it.  Rack  them  well  to  see  if  they 


190  Margaret  Fuller 

are  brave.     //  they  can  do  without  us,  we  will  help 
them." 

The  surrender  came  to  her  at  last  as  a  relief  from 
the  bloodshed  which  had  grown  intolerable.  On  Mon 
day  evening,  July  2,  she  learned  that  the  French  were 
preparing  to  cross  the  river  and  take  possession  of 
the  city.  "  I  went  into  the  Corso  with  some  friends," 
she  writes.  "  The  lancers  of  Garibaldi  galloped  along 
in  full  career.  .  .  .  We  followed  them  to  the  piazza 
of  St.  John  Lateran.  .  .  .  The  sun  was  setting,  the 
crescent  moon  rising,  the  flower  of  the  Italian  youth 
were  marshaling  in  that  solemn  place.  .  .  .  They 
had  all  put  on  the  beautiful  dress  of  the  Garibaldi 
legion,  the  tunic  of  bright  red  cloth,  the  Greek  cap, 
or  else  round  hat  with  Puritan  plume.  Their  long 
hair  was  blown  back  from  resolute  faces;  all  looked 
full  of  courage.  .  .  .  They  had  weighed  life  and  all 
its  material  advantages  against  liberty,  and  made  their 
election.  ...  I  saw  the  wounded,  all  that  could  go, 
laden  upon  their  baggage  cars.  .  .  .  The  women 
were  ready;  their  eyes  were  resolved,  if  sad.  The 
wife  of  Garibaldi  followed  him  on  horseback.  He 
himself  was  distinguished  by  the  white  tunic.  .  .  . 
He  went  upon  the  parapet,  and  looked  upon  the  road 
with  a  spy-glass,  and,  no  obstruction  being  in  sight, 
he  turned  his  face  for  a  moment  back  upon  Rome, 
then  led  the  way  through  the  gate.  Hard  was  the 


The  Revolutionist  191 

heart,  stony  and  seared  the  eye,  that  had  no  tear  for 
that  moment.  .  .  .  And  Rome,  anew  the  Niobe! 
Must  she  lose  also  these  beautiful  and  brave,  that 
promised  her  regeneration,  and  would  have  given  it, 
but  for  the  perfidy,  the  overpowering  force,  of  the 
foreign  intervention  ?  " 

On  the  morning  of  July  4,  the  French  troops 
entered  Rome.  The  population  remained  indoors 
with  windows  closed;  whenever  a  French  ofHcer  or 
soldier  entered  a  cafe,  the  Italians  silently  rose  and 
went  out.  "  In  two  days  of  French  '  order ',"  Mar 
garet  wrote,  "more  acts  of  violence  have  been  com 
mitted  than  in  two  months  under  the  Triumvirate." 

Mazzini  was  still  in  Rome,  and  stubbornly  refused 
to  leave  the  city.  He  walked  about  the  streets,  expos 
ing  himself  to  arrest  by  the  French.  But  for  some 
reason  they  dared  not  seize  him.  Margaret  Fuller 
had  not  seen  him  during  the  last  two  weeks  of  the 
siege.  Now  she  went  to  search  for  him  and  found 
him  in  the  apartment  of  Gustavo  Modena,  the  actor. 
"  In  two  short  months,"  she  writes,  "  he  had  grown 
old;  all  the  vital  juices  seemed  exhausted;  his  eyes 
were  all  blood-shot;  his  skin  orange;  flesh  he  had 
none;  his  hair  was  mixed  with  white;  his  hand  was 
painful  to  the  touch;  but  he  had  never  flinched,  never 
quailed;  had  protested  in  the  last  hour  against  sur 
render;  sweet  and  calm,  but  full  of  a  more  fiery  pur- 


1 92  Margaret  Fuller 

pose  than  ever ;  in  him  I  revered  the  hero,  and  owned 
myself  not  of  that  mold." 

It  was  Margaret  Fuller  and  Giulia  Modena  who  at 
last  persuaded  him  to  leave  Rome,  and  it  was  Jane 
Carlyle  received  and  comforted  him  when  he  went 
back  to  London. 

After  Mazzjni  was  safe,  Margaret  remained  another 
day  in  Rome  and  went  over  the  scene  of  the  conflict. 
She  saw  with  her  own  eyes  the  awful  inequalities  of 
the  combat,  the  superior  numbers  and  organization  of 
the  French  against  the  sheer  valor  of  the  Italians. 
Her  beloved  Italy  had  been  doomed,  not  at  the  end 
when  Garibaldi  decided  on  surrender  and  Mazzini 
resisted  it,  but  from  the  very  first.  "  A  Contadini 
showed  me  where  thirty-seven  braves  are  buried  be 
neath  a  heap  of  wall  that  fell  upon  them  in  the  shock 
of  one  cannonade.  A  marble  nymph  with  broken  arm 
looked  sadly  that  way  from  her  sun-dried  fountain; 
some  roses  were  blooming  still,  some  red  oleanders, 
amid  the  ruin.  .  .  .  This  was  in  the  Vascello.  I 
then  entered  the  French  ground,  all  mapped  and  hol 
lowed  like  a  honeycomb.  A  pair  of  skeleton  legs  pro 
truded  from  a  bank  of  one  barricade;  lower,  a  dog 
had  scratched  away  its  light  covering  of  earth  from 
the  body  of  a  man,  and  discovered  it  lying  face  up 
ward  all  dressed;  the  dog  stood  gazing  on  it  with  an 
air  of  stupid  amazement." 


CHAPTER  XI 
1850 

ON  the  day  when  the  French  entered  Rome,  Margaret 
and  Ossoli  sat  in  her  chamber  and  refused  to  look 
out  of  the  window.  The  Roman  husband  was  weep 
ing.  They  had  lost  everything;  they  were  empty- 
handed  indeed.  "  Private  hopes  of  mine  are  fallen 
with  the  hopes  of  Italy,"  Margaret  wrote;  "I  have 
played  for  a  new  stake,  and  lost  it." 

She  went  to  the  American  ambassador  and  begged 
him  to  get  horses  for  her,  that  she  might  post  immedi 
ately  to  Rieti.  On  arriving  there,  she  found  the  ten- 
months-old  Nino  in  such  a  sad  condition  of  malnu 
trition  that  it  seemed  to  her  impossible  that  he  could 
live.  The  nurse's  milk  had  failed  and  she  had  fed 
the  infant  on  bread  and  wine.  Margaret  could  only 
believe  that  this  was  a  deliberate  betrayal  of  her 
trust,  though  the  woman  had  probably  but  followed 
the  dictates  of  her  own  ignorance.  At  any  rate  the 
child  had  wasted  away  to  nothing  and  was  too  weak 
to  lift  his  hand.  He  had  all  but  succumbed  to  a  com 
bination  of  untoward  circumstances  which  Margaret 

193 


194  Margaret  Fuller 

could  not  have  foreseen.  "  This  last  plot  against 
me  has  been  so  cruelly,  so  cunningly  wrought,  that  I 
shall  never  acquiesce,"  she  wrote.  "  I  submit,  because 
useless  resistance  is  degrading,  but  I  demand  an  ex 
planation." 

It  was  only  after  several  weeks  of  devoted  nursing 
that  the  child  showed  signs  of  returning  health.  While 
his  life  still  hung  in  the  balance  she  had  a  desperate 
thought  which  she  afterwards  confessed.  If  Angelino 
should  die,  she  would  conceal  the  fact  of  his  existence 
and  announce  her  marriage  "as  if  it  were  something 
new."  Her  dread  of  the  "  social  inquisition "  was 
so  great  that,  in  spite  of  her  intense  maternal  tender 
ness,  she  could  entertain  this  passing  fantasy  of 
escape  from  its  impending  terrors.  But  when  she 
knew  that  the  child  would  live,  she  shouldered  the 
difficult  task  ahead  of  her.  She  chose  to  be  non 
committal  rather  than  to  lie.  Perhaps  Mary  Woll- 
stonecraft  would  have  scorned  the  indirection  to 
which  Margaret  was  driven.  But  then  Mary's  strug 
gle  was  with  her  lover,  while  Margaret's  was  with 
society.  Besides,  the  Irish  woman  had  some  freedoms 
which  the  Puritan  woman  could  never  achieve. 

Margaret  and  her  husband  had  left  Rome  precipi 
tately.  The  French  issued  an  order  that  all  foreigners 
who  had  aided  the  republic  should  depart  within 
twenty-four  hours.  And  Angelo  Ossoli,  who  had 


7850  195 

commanded  a  battery  on  the  Pincian  hill  and  fought 
for  Mazzini's  party  until  the  last  hour  of  surrender, 
could  not  safely  remain  in  Rome.  From  Rieti  they 
made  their  way  to  Florence,  where  the  Austrians  were 
in  possession.  Margaret  had  formerly  expressed  a 
prejudice  against  Florence, — "  It  seems  a  kind  of 
Boston  to  me, — the  same  good  and  the  same  ill ;  I  have 
had  enough  of  both."  But  now  she  was  only  anxious 
to  be  permitted  to  remain  there.  The  Austrian  police 
threatened  at  first  to  make  them  move  on,  but  in  the 
end  allowed  them  to  stay.  Margaret  was  under 
police  surveillance  while  she  remained  in  Florence,  and 
no  longer  engaged  in  political  activities.  She  was 
immersed  in  domestic  cares  and  in  the  writing  of  her 
history  of  the  revolution. 

At  this  point  Margaret  took  her  husband's  name, 
and  decided  after  some  hesitation  to  assume  the  title 
of  "  Marchesa."  The  title  was  thought  by  some  of 
her  American  critics  to  explain  a  good  deal.  Of 
course  Margaret  was  bedazzled  by  a  European  title, 
for  had  she  not  as  a  child  idealized  herself  as  a  prin 
cess  ?  But  Margaret  must  have  known  how  numerous 
marchesas  were  in  Italy,  and  that  her  mercenary,  lying 
landlady  in  the  Piazzo  Barberini  was  a  marchesa ;  and, 
knowing  this,  she  was  probably  less  bedazzled  by  the 
title  than  the  untraveled  persons  who  considered  her 
so.  "  The  fact  is,"  she  wrote  to  a  friend,  "  it  looks 


196  Margaret  Fuller 

to  me  silly  for  a  radical  like  me  to  be  carrying  a  title; 
and  yet,  while  Ossoli  is  in  his  native  land,  it  seems 
disjoining  myself  from  him  not  to  bear  it.  It  is  a 
sort  of  thing  that  does  not  naturally  belong  to  me,  and, 
unsustained  by  fortune,  is  but  a  souvenir  even  for 
Ossoli.  Yet  .  .  .  for  him  to  drop  an  inherited  title 
would  be,  in  some  sort,  to  acquiesce  in  his  brothers' 
disclaiming  him,  and  to  abandon  a  right  he  may  pas 
sively  wish  to  maintain  for  his  child.  ...  If  Ossoli 
should  drop  the  title,  it  would  be  a  suitable  moment 
to  do  so  on  becoming  an  inhabitant  of  Republican 
America."  All  of  which  sounds  very  sensible  and 
sincere  and  not  at  all  "  snobbish  "  and  bedazzled. 

The  Ossolis  lived  in  Florence  from  October  until 
the  following  June, — no  doubt  incurring  a  debt  by 
doing  so.  They  had  a  little  apartment  overlooking 
the  Piazza.  Santa  Maria  Novella.  There  was  a  grate- 
fire  in  the  sitting-room  and  a  Roman  lamp  on  the 
table,  beside  which  Margaret  and  her  husband  sat 
reading  in  the  evening.  Their  only  luxuries  were 
their  principles.  While  the  Austrians  paraded  and 
beat  their  drums  in  the  Piazza,  below,  Ossoli  wore 
the  uniform  of  the  defeated  within  doors, — the  brown 
and  red  coat  of  the  Civic  Guard.  He  and  Margaret 
were  greatly  depressed  by  the  atmosphere  of  reaction 
in  which  Florence  was  submerged.  Their  ardent  re 
publicanism,  their  affection  for  the  child,  and  their 


1850 197 

mutual  love  were  the  strong  bonds  between  them. 
When  they  went  out,  they  frequently  went  their 
separate  ways :  Ossoli,  to  his  vesper  services  and  cafes 
and  Margaret  to  the  society  of  English  and  American 
friends. 

The  Brownings  were  in  Florence  and  Margaret 
met  them  there  for  the  first  time.  Mrs.  Browning's 
child  was  several  months  younger  than  Margaret's. 
The  meeting  between  the  two  middle-aged  mothers 
piques  the  imagination.  What  did  they  think  of  each 
other  ?  What  did  Mrs.  Browning  say  about  Margaret 
and  Margaret's  motherhood  in  that  paper  which  she 
afterwards  wrote  and  which  was  so  unaccountably 
lost?  We  only  know  that  the  Brownings,  like  every 
one  else,  were  impressed  by  Margaret's  brilliant 
powers  of  conversation,  and  wondered  at  the  com 
paratively  poor  account  of  her  mind  and  personality 
given  by  her  writings. 

During  her  winter  in  Florence,  Margaret  completed 
her  history  of  the  Roman  Revolution.  Mrs.  Browning 
said,  "  It  would  have  been  more  equal  to  her  faculties 
than  anything  she  had  ever  yet  produced."  There  is 
every  reason  for  believing  this  to  be  true.  Here  she 
was  in  her  favorite  field  of  politics;  she  had  herself 
taken  part  in  the  secret  work  of  preparation  and  had 
shared  the  counsels  of  the  leaders.  In  Rome,  Ossoli 
had  gleaned  for  her  the  news  of  the  cafes  daily; 


198  Margaret  Fuller 

through  his  family  connections,  he  knew  the  views  of 
the  Papal  politicians  and  through  his  secret  member 
ship  in  the  clubs  of  "  Young  Italy  ",  he  followed  the 
course  of  the  revolutionary  group.  "  He  has  been  a 
judicious  observer  of  all  that  passed  before  his  eyes," 
said  Margaret,  who  evidently  valued  his  assistance. 
She  herself  had  witnessed  the  battles  of  the  siege,  had 
watched  the  French  bombs  falling  around  her,  had 
nursed  the  wounded,  and  had  helped  to  close  the  eyes 
of  the  dying  republic.  Mazzini  and  Mieckiewicz  were 
her  personal  and  confidential  friends. 

Garibaldi  she  knew  chiefly  through  his  Legionaries 
and  their  attitude  toward  him.  The  Legionaries 
themselves  she  knew  in  an  intimate  way.  She  had 
nursed  them  in  the  hospitals  and  heard  their  stories 
of  the  leader.  She  had  once  encountered  a  company 
of  them  in  a  lonely  country  inn  and  had  tamed  them 
for  the  terrified  landlord.  "  Give  these  good  men 
wine  and  bread  on  my  account,"  she  said  majestically; 
"  for  after  their  ride  they  must  need  refreshment." 
Making  respectful  bows  to  her,  they  sat  down  to 
lunch,  and  gave  her  an  account  of  their  journey. 
Margaret  had  learned  another  aspect  of  the  Legion 
aries,  owing  to  the  fact  that  little  Nino's  nurse  was 
the  loveliest  young  woman  in  the  village  of  Rieti. 
The  passion  and  violence  of  these  primitive  Italian 
natures  inspired  no  terror  and  horror  in  her  but  a 


i 8 50  199 

great  deal  of  sympathy  and  understanding.  She 
could  have  written  about  the  Legionaries  with  knowl 
edge  and  insight. 

In  addition  to  her  personal  observations  and  expe 
riences,  she  had  the  scholar's  equipment  for  her  task. 
Her  father's  influence  had  given  her  the  historical 
perspective  for  the  events  of  1848.  The  ideals  of  lib 
erty  from  Brutus  to  Dante  in  Italy,  and  from  Rous 
seau  to  Fourier  in  France,  had  formed  the  chief 
materials  of  her  education  and  the  chief  interests  of 
her  maturity.  Now  she  added  the  study  of  Louis 
Blanc's  Ten  Years  and  Lamartine's  Girondists.  "  I 
am  anxious  to  do  historical  justice  to  facts  and  per 
sons,"  she  wrote.  That  her  book  was  a  work  of 
journalism,  she  as  good  as  tells  us.  "  I  take  no  pains 
but  let  the  good  genius  guide  my  pen."  Every  morn 
ing,  after  she  had  washed  and  dressed  the  baby,  she 
sat  down  and  wrote  out  what  came  into  her  mind  on 
the  subject  of  the  social  and  political  struggle  of 
Rome.  This  does  not  lessen  our  interest  in  what  the 
good  genius  told  her  to  write,  but  just  the  contrary. 
It  would  be  vastly  interesting  to  read.  Margaret  had 
been  preparing  for  this  task  for  forty  years;  she 
should  have  done  it  easily  and  well  and  without 
agonizing  when  the  time  came.  » 

Certain  it  is  that  her  book  must  have  emphasized 
one  important  aspect  of  Mazzini's  political  idealism 


aoo  Margaret  Fuller 

which  subsequent  and  more  impressive  histories  have 
failed  to  stress.  This  was  his  zeal  for  the  republican 
form  of  government.  It  has  come  about  that  the  his 
tory  of  Italian  unity  and  Mazzini's  place  in  it  has 
been  interpreted  by  English  liberal  writers.  These 
historians  have  usually  represented  the  point  of  view 
that  a  constitutional  monarchy  does  not  essentially 
differ  from  a  republic.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Maz- 
zini's  republicanism  was  a  vital  part  of  his  political 
philosophy;  he  saw  in  the  spread  of  republics  an  es 
sential  step  toward  the  United  States  of  Europe,  to 
which  he  already  looked  forward.  It  was  natural  that 
Margaret  Fuller,  as  her  father's  daughter  and  the 
pupil  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  should  understand  Maz- 
zini's  passion  for  republics  and  his  ardent  belief  in 
their  necessity.  Her  hereditary  sympathies  were  on 
that  side,  and  she  must  have  seen  the  practical  signifi 
cance  of  the  leader's  republican  convictions. 

Her  book  was  completed  in  the  spring  of  1850,  and 
Margaret  made  preparations  to  return  to  America  and 
find  a  publisher.  It  may  not  be  amiss  to  refer  here 
to  Hawthorne's  amazing  statement  that  the  lamented 
history  (lost  with  Margaret  at  sea)  never  existed  at 
all.  Since  this  opinion  is  contained  in  a  standard 
biography  and  a  familiar  "  reference  "  work,  it  can 
not  be  overlooked.  But  enough  has  already  been  said 
concerning  Hawthorne's  hysterical  prejudice  against 


201 


Margaret  to  explain  this  final  fantasy  of  his  unhappy 
hatred,  so  that  we  need  not  take  it  too  seriously. 

eling,  a  sailing  vessel  from  Leghorn  to  New  York 
loaded  with  rags  and  marble.  As  the  journey  would 
last  two  months,  she  took  a  white  goat  on  board  to 
supply  Angelino  with  milk.  A  young  Italian  girl 
named  Celesta  Pardena,  who  was  on  her  way  to 
domestic  service  in  America,  was  engaged  to  help  take 
care  of  the  baby  during  the  voyage.  Horace  Sumner 
of  Boston,  who  had  adored  Margaret  since  his  stu 
dent  days  at  Brook  Farm  and  who  had  spent  the 
winter  in  Florence  in  order  to  be  near  her,  was  also 
of  the  party.  He  and  Ossoli  planned  to  exchange 
English  and  Italian  lessons  during  the  voyage.  The 
prospects  of  the  trip,  with  all  its  economies,  was  not 
unpleasing. 

Yet  Margaret  set  sail  in  a  mood  of  the  utmost  de 
pression  and  foreboding.  "  It  has  long  seemed,  that, 
in  the  year  1850,  I  should  stand  on  a  plateau  in  the 
ascent  of  life,  where  I  should  be  allowed  to  pause  for 
a  while,  and  take  more  clear  and  commanding  views 
than  ever  before.  Yet  my  life  proceeds  as  regularly 
as  the  fates  of  a  Greek  tragedy,  and  I  can  but  accept 
the  pages  as  they  turn."  In  view  of  what  actually 
happened,  her  letters  written  on  the  eve  of  the  voyage 


2O2  Margaret  Fuller 

seem  almost  prophetic.  "  I  am  absurdly  fearful/'  she 
said,  "  and  various  omens  have  combined  to  give  me 
a  dark  feeling.  I  am  become  indeed  a  miserable 
coward  for  the  sake  of  Angelino.  I  fear  heat  and 
cold,  fear  the  voyage,  fear  biting  poverty.  I  hope  I 
shall  not  be  forced  to  be  as  brave  for  him,  as  I  have 
been  for  myself,  and  that  if  I  succeed  to  rear  him,  he 
will  be  neither  a  weak  nor  a  bad  man.  But  I  love  him 
too  much.  In  case  of  mishap,  however,  I  shall  perish 
with  my  husband  and  my  child  and  we  may  be  trans 
ferred  to  some  happier  state/' 

Margaret  indeed  had  good  reason  to  fear  the  eco 
nomic  struggle  ahead  of  her.  The  maintenance  of  an 
indigent  Italian  nobleman  and  a  young  child  was 
almost  an  impossible  undertaking  in  those  days,  when 
an  unmarried  gentlewoman  could  scarcely  support 
herself.  Mrs.  Story  put  it  accurately  enough  when 
she  said,  "  All  I  know  is  that  Margaret  will  have  to 
exert  herself."  It  was  true  that  Margaret  had  for 
merly  earned  a  generous  salary  on  the  Tribune;  but 
with  the  odor  of  a  "  Fourieristic  "  marriage  clinging 
to  her  skirts,  she  was  now  a  very  different  person. 
Mr.  Greeley  loved  political  and  economic  rebels  but 
had  no  tolerance  at  all  for  those  who  allowed  their 
independence  of  thought  to  invade  the  realm  of  mar 
riage.  How  many  of  her  old  friends  could  she  expect 
to  stand  by  her  in  the  future,  and,  of  those,  how 


203 


many  would  be  able  to  help  her  to  remunerative  em 
ployment?  These  were  unanswered  and  as  yet  un 
answerable  questions  with  which  Margaret  must  have 
occupied  herself  a  great  deal.  "  But  I  think  there  will 
remain  for  me  a  sufficient  number  of  friends  to  keep 
my  heart  warm,  and  to  help  me  earn  my  bread,"  she 
wrote  hopefully  to  Mrs.  Story. 

These  were  actual  and  well-grounded  fears.  But 
she  had  no  objective  reasons  for  dreading  the  voyage 
itself,  so  far  as  one  can  discover.  Of  course  anyone 
may  entertain  an  abnormal  and  superstitious  fear  of 
the  sea  and  its  perils;  but  Margaret  had  crossed  on 
the  Cambria  four  years  before  with  all  the  courage 
of  a  normal  passenger.  It  is  most  likely  that  she  now 
preferred  to  let  her  apprehensive  thoughts  dwell  on 
the  perils  of  the  voyage  rather  than  on  the  trials  and 
dangers  of  her  new  life  in  America. 

The  Elizabeth  sailed  from  Leghorn  on  the  seven 
teenth  of  May.     Margaret  passed  her  fortieth  birth-  j 
day  on  the  sixth  day  out.    Two  days  later,  the  captain  « 
fell  ill  of  the  smallpox  and  as  the  ship  was  nearing' 
Gibraltar  on  the  morning  of  June  3,  he  died.     He 
was  buried  in  deep  water  at  sunset. 

Margaret  described  the  scene  of  the  burial  in  a  letter 
to  Marcus  Spring.  "  You  cannot  think  how  beautiful 
the  whole  thing  was  :  —  the  decent  array  and  sad  rev 
erence  of  the  sailors;  the  many  ships  with  their  ban- 


204  Margaret  Fuller 

ners  flying;  the  stern  pillar  of  Hercules  all  bathed  in 
roseate  vapor;  the  little  white  sails  diving  into  the  blue 
depths  with  that  solemn  spoil  of  the  good  man,  when 
he  had  been  so  agonized  and  gasping  as  the  last  sun 
stooped." 

In  this  letter,  mailed  at  Gibraltar,  she  told  how  she 
had  carried  her  baby  into  the  sick  man's  room  before 
they  knew  the  nature  of  his  disease  and  feared  now 
for  the  child's  life.  "  It  is  vain  by  prudence  to  seek 
to  evade  the  stern  assaults  of  destiny.  I  submit/' 
This  mood  of  acquiescence  was  coming  to  be  a  per 
sistent  one. 

After  a  week  in  quarantine,  the  vessel  proceeded 
under  the  command  of  the  mate.  The  fatalities  of  the 
remainder  of  the  voyage  have  been  often  related. 
Margaret's  child  succumbed  to  the  smallpox  as  she 
had  feared  and  for  days  his  life  was  despaired  of. 
But  he  recovered  at  last,  and  for  a  brief  interval  mis 
fortune  stayed  its  hand.  Then  came  the  last  act  of 
the  tragedy,  the  shipwreck  of  the  Elizabeth  just  as 
she  was  about  to  enter  the  port  of  New  York. 

On  the  eve  of  landing,  a  strong  gale  arose.  The 
inexperienced  mate  lost  his  bearings  and  the  ship 
was  driven  on  a  sand-bar  off  Fire  Island.  The  Carrara 
marble  in  the  hold  completed  the  wreck.  The  vessel 
at  once  began  to  break  up  but  remained  afloat  ten 
hours, — from  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  until  one 


1850  205 

in  the  afternoon.  A  howling  gale  continued  all  the 
while  and  mountainous  seas  whipped  and  tortured  the 
groaning  vessel.  When  the  final  crash  came,  Mar 
garet  and  her  husband  went  down  with  the  ship  and 
their  bodies  disappeared  and  were  never  recovered. 
The  body  of  Margaret's  child  was  washed  up  naked 
on  the  sands,  and  was  later  taken  to  Mt.  Auburn  by 
relatives  and  buried  beside  his  New  England  grand 
father.  The  manuscript  of  her  book  on  the  Roman 
revolution  vanished  without  a  trace. 

The  news  of  the  tragedy  sent  a  shock  of  horror 
through  the  literary  world  of  that  day.    In  the  midst 
of  the  lamentations  and  eulogies,  Margaret's  friends 
were  outraged  by  the  attitude  of  the  mate  of  the 
Elisabeth.      He    said    that    the    tragedy    was    Mar 
garet's  own  fault.     But  this  was  disposed  of  as  an 
effort  in  his  own  defense,  because  he  had  left  the  ship 
while  his  passengers  were  still  on  board.     But  the 
accounts  of  all  the  other  survivors  show  that  he  had 
grounds  for  his  statement.     In  one  particular  their      * 
stories  all  agreed,  and  this  was  that  Margaret  had     j 
exerted  almost  no  effort  from  the  beginning  to  the  / 
end  to  save  herself  and  her  family.     Her  behavior/ 
gave  the  impression  of  acquiescence  in  her  fate. 

The  shipwreck  was  near  the  shore.  According  to 
Bayard  Taylor,  who  went  down  to  survey  the  scene, 
the  vessel  was  not  more  than  fifty  yards  distant  from 


206  Margaret  Fuller 

the  sands.  When  morning  came  after  the  disaster  of 
the^-night,  those  on  board  could  see  the  people  on  the 
shore.  They  saw  a  life-boat  brought  out,  but  no  effort 
was  made  to  man  it.  Very  early  in  the  day  it  be 
came  evident  to  the  victims  on  the  wreck  that  no 
help  was  to  be  expected  from  the  shore  and  that  only 
by  their  own  efforts  could  they  be  rescued.  It  was 
a  situation  in  which  desperate  expedients  and  supreme 
courage  alone  could  help.  But  Margaret  remained  a 
passive  spectator  of  approaching  death  until  the  end. 

On  the  other  hand,  Mrs.  Hasty,  the  wife  of  the 
deceased  captain  and  a  sorrowing  widow,  made  the 
most  desperate  efforts  to  save  her  life  and  succeeded. 
All  the  heroism  and  all  the  initiative  of  the  occasion 
were  hers.  When  the  cabin  began  to  break  up,  it  was 
she  who  summoned  help  from  the  forecastle  and  who 
led  the  way  in  making  the  perilous  passage  across  the 
canting  deck.  And  it  was  she  who  volunteered  to  go 
first  when  the  time  came  to  try  the  planks. 

It  appears  that  a  council  of  crew  and  passengers 
was  held  in  the  forecastle  when  all  hope  of  help  from 
the  shore  was  given  up.  A  plan  was  proposed  and 
agreed  to  by  all,  including  Margaret,  that  each  of  the 
passengers  should  bestride  a  plank,  rigged  up  with 
rope  handles  and  that  a  seaman,  swimming  behind, 
should  steer  the  frail  craft  toward  the  shore.  Mrs. 
Hasty  led  the  way,  with  the  second-mate  swimming 


2°7 


behind  her,  and  though  half  -drowned  they  at  last 
reached  the  sands.  It  was  now  Margaret's  turn  to 
go,  but  she  refused.  The  mate  (now  the  commanding 
officer)  used  all  his  powers  of  persuasion.  He  would 
himself  take  the  child,  and  Margaret  and  her  husband 
could  go  with  two  seamen.  But  she  steadily  refused 
to  leave  the  ship,  giving  as  her  reason  that  she  would 
not  be  separated  from  her  husband  and  child.  Ossoli, 
who  had  fought  in  the  most  exposed  positions  during 
the  siege  of  Rome  and  whose  physical  courage  was 
beyond  suspicion,  permitted  her  to  take  the  lead  as 
usual.  Her  strange  paralysis  was  allowed  to  decide 
the  fate  of  her  whole  family.  Stricken  with  a  pas 
sivity,  which  was  afterwards  described  as  Christian 
fortitude,  she  awaited  the  end. 

At  last  in  desperation,  the  commander  gave  the 
order  for  the  crew  to  leave  the  ship.     Four  sailors 
still  remained  aboard,  together  with  Margaret,  Ossoli, 
Nino,  and  Celesta  Pardena.     Ossoli  prayed  with  the 
young  Italian  girl;  the  two  simple-minded  children  of 
the  Church  clung  to  its  comfort  and  solace  to  the  last 
hour.    Margaret  sat  at  the  foot  of  the  main  mast,  clad 
in  a  nightgown,  her  long  hair  loosened  and  whipped 
by  the  winds.    She  held  her  child  in  her  arms,  wrapped  • 
in  shawls.    The  last  words  she  was  heard  to  say  were,  I 
"  I  see  nothing  but  death  before  me,  —  I  shall  never  ! 
reach  the  shore."  j 


208  Margaret  Fuller 


When  the  steward,  who  had  remained  aboard,  saw 
that  the  main  mast  was  about  to  fall,  he  seized  the 
child,  almost  by  main  force,  from  Margaret's  grasp 
and  plunged  into  the  sea  with  it.  Their  dead  bodies 
were  washed  upon  the  beach  soon  afterwards,  still 
warm.  Ossoli  and  Celesta  clung  for  a  moment  at  the 
rigging  and  then  went  down  together.  Margaret 
went  down  alone. 

Many  years  before  she  had  once  written,  "If  all 
the  wrecked  submitted  to  be  drowned,  the  world  would 
be  a  desert/'  This  is  a  literal  description  of  how  she 
ultimately  met  her  death.  She  "  submitted  to  be 
drowned."  Her  death  had  in  it  the  elements  of  pagan 
acquiescence,  of  consenting  to  her  destiny. 

By  a  strange  coincidence  of  mischances,  no  records 
of  her  foreign  life  survived.  A  trunk,  which  was 
washed  upon  the  beach,  contained  Margaret's  cor 
respondence  with  Ossoli,  in  Italian,  during  her  stay 
in  Rieti.  Beyond  this,  practically  nothing  re 
mained. 

Within  a  year  or  so,  a  memorial  volume  was  pro 
jected  by  Margaret's  New  England  friends.  Giuseppe 
Mazzini  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Browning  were  invited  to 
contribute.  Carlyle  wrote  to  Emerson,  "  Browning 
spoke  a  long  while  to  me,  with  emphasis,  on  the  sub 
ject  [Margaret  and  her  d'Ossoli]  ...  I  said  he 
ought  to  send  these  reminiscences  to  America;  .  .  . 


1850  209 

his  answer  gave  me  the  impression  there  had  been 
hindrance  somewhere. "  What  could  the  hindrance 
have  been  ?  At  any  rate,  it  was  surmounted  and  both 
Robert  Browning  and  Elizabeth  Browning  wrote  out 
their  reminiscences  of  Margaret  as  they  had  known 
her  in  Florence  and  sent  them  to  America.  They  re- 
reatedly  assured  everyone  who  asked  them  about  it 
afterwards  that  they  did  write.  But  the  papers  never 
came  to  light.  They  were  mysteriously  lost  and  no 
explanation  of  the  loss  was  ever  forthcoming.  Fur 
thermore,  Mazzini's  reminiscences,  which  he  also  wrote 
and  sent  to  America,  unaccountably  disappeared. 
Like  the  Brownings,  he  afterwards  assured  inquirers 
that  he  had  sent  a  contribution  for  the  Memoirs  to 
America.  With  one  accord,  these  interesting  manu 
scripts  all  went  astray  in  the  mail.  The  coincidence 
strains  our  credulity.  Is  it  not  more  likely  that  an 
unknown  censor  interfered?  It  seems  very  probable 
that  Mazzini  and  the  Brownings  might  have  written 
of  Margaret's  life  in  Italy  with  a  frankness  which 
did  not  accord  with  American  standards.  What 
Browning  might  have  said,  emphatically,  of  Margaret 
and  her  d'Ossoli;  what  Mrs.  Browning  might  have 
spoken  of  Margaret  and  her  Nino;  what  Mazzini 
might  have  written  of  Margaret  in  Rome — over  all 
this  one  can  now  only  spec'ulate.  From  comprehending 
witnesses  like  these,  something  significant  might  well 


2IO  Margaret  Fuller 

be  expected,  glimpses  of  the  kind  of  woman  Margaret 
really  was,  revelations  through  the  impression  she 
made  on  personalities  with  the  large  tolerance  of  life 
which  belongs  to  genius. 

It  was  by  her  personality  rather  than  her  work  that 

/she  impressed  herself  on  her  generation.    But  the  con- 

| quest  of  a  personality  by  a  woman  and  a  daughter  of 

I  Puritanism  was  arjieroic  achievement.     It  meant  the 

(overthrow  of   respectabilities  and  sacrosanctities   on 

every  hand  and  a  degree  of  resolution  which  is  not 

supposed  to  reside  in  a  truly  feminine  nature. 

There  were  strange  contradictions  in  her  life  which 
were  a  puzzle  to  her  age.  Her  inconsistencies  of 
health  and  fluctuations  of  energy  were  baffling  to  those 
who  knew  her  best.  Though  always  an  invalid,  she 
did  the  work  of  three  women  and  sometimes  "  worked 
better  when  she  was  ill."  She  gave  an  impression 
of  abundant  vitality  and  a  vast  fund  of  energy.  Yet 
there  were  moments  when  her  energy  strangely  for 
sook  her,  as  when  she  gave  herself  up  without  a 
struggle  to  the  waves.  These  things  were  manifesta 
tions  of  hysteria,  and  Margaret  had  long  been  known 
to  have  had  a  neurotic  constitution.  According  to  the 
Freudian  psychology,  the  source  of  her  hysteria  was 
a  secret  which  she  kept  from  herself,  from  her  own 
consciousness.  "  Nature  keeps  so  many  secrets,"  she 
once  said,  referring  to  the  concealment  of  her  mar- 


i 8 so  211 

riage,  "  that  I  had  supposed  the  moral  writers  exag 
gerated  the  dangers  and  plagues  of  keeping  them ;  but 
they  cannot  exaggerate."  But  the  dangers  and  plagues 
are  greatly  enhanced  when  this  conflict  with  society 
becomes  a  conflict  within  one's  own  mental  life.  As 
Margaret  kept  the  date  of  her  marriage  a  secret  to 
evade  the  social  censor,  she  had  in  earliest  childhood 
undertaken  a  far  more  dangerous  concealment,  the 
concealment  from  the  inward  censor  of  an  erotic  ele 
ment  in  her  love  for  a  deeply  reverenced  father.  Yet 
with  her  whole  conscious  nature,  Margaret  loved  the 
truth  and  never  ceased  from  following  it.  "  I  feel 
the  strength  to  dispense  with  all  illusions,"  she  said; 
"  I  will  stand  ready  and  rejoice  in  the  severest  proba 
tions."  In  this  kind  of  ordeal  she  was  profoundly 
courageous. 

She  took  for  her  chief  interests  in  life  two  sub 
jects  which  were  in  her  day  regarded  as  outside  of 
woman's  sphere.  Her  favorite  themes  were  love  and 
politics.  Nowadays  she  would  be  permitted  to  take  an 
interest  in  politics  but  she  would  still  find  that  love 
was  for  her  sex  a  forbidden  topic. 

The  general  cast  of  her  political  views  was  deter 
mined  far  back  in  her  childish  years,  when  Timothy 
Fuller  had  ripped  out  sarcasms  against  the  Allies  who 
had  put  down  Jacobinism  in  France  and  restored 
Bourbonism  instead.  Margaret's  mind  received  then 


212  Margaret  Fuller 

a  permanent  impression,  which  caused  her  to  stand, 
thirty  years  later,  as  she  did,  with  the  forces  of  young 
Italy  against  papal  Bourbonists  of  Rome. 

She  was  a  passionate  advocate  of  economic  reforms 
and  women's  rights.  For  women  also,  she  held,  the 
career  should  be  open  to  talent.  "  Another  century," 
she  wrote,  "  and  I  might  ask  to  be  made  Ambassador 
myself, — 'tis  true,  like  other  Ambassadors,  I  would 
employ  clerks  to  do  most  of  the  duty."  Indeed,  Mar 
garet  would  have  made  an  excellent  ambassador.  One 
who  unites  the  ability  to  appreciate  Tasso  manuscripts 
with  the  power  to  tame  Garibaldi's  Legionaries  is  not 
found  for  the  Italian  embassy  every  day. 

In  the  psychology  of  love,  she  was  a  pioneer. 
Though  it  is  considered  womanly  to  love  and  un 
womanly  not  to  love,  to  take  an  intelligent  and  out 
spoken  interest  in  the  subject  is  quite  another  matter. 
A  woman  should  open  her  mouth  and  shut  her  eyes. 
Margaret  had  too  much  curiostiy,  too  much  veracity, 
and  too  little  naivete  to  please  the  ideas  of  the 
parochial  society  in  which  she  lived.  Even  liberal- 
minded  Transcendental sts  who  regarded  the  devil  as 
a  superstition,  believed  in  the  existence  of  the  "  baser 
instincts"  and  the  extirpation  of  the  "lower  im 
pulses  "  by  the  higher  will-power. 

To  Margaret's  way  of  thinking,  confirmed  and 
strengthened  by  the  influence  of  Goethe,  the  vast 


213 


separation  between  good  and  evil  impulses  in  human 
nature  was  not  so  clear.  Neither  did  she  believe  that 
the  baser  instincts  could  be  refined  away  through  a 
series  of  easy  victories,  although  she  was  anything 
but  a  materialist  in  her  conception  of  love.  She  be 
lieved  in  the  hunger  of  the  affections,  because  she  had 
experienced  it.  "  Imperfect  as  love  is,"  she  wrote 
in  the  last  year  of  her  life,  "  I  want  human  beings  to 
love,  as  I  suffocate  without."  Though  she  did  not 
generalize  from  her  experience,  she  did  acknowledge 
the  fulfilment  of  the  law  in  her  own  case  and  thereby 
set  an  example  of  admitting  the  emotional  necessities 
of  life. 

Her  biographers  often  speak  of  this  characteristic 
of  Margaret's  nature  as  if  it  were  the  exceptional 
trait  of  her  unusual  disposition.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
it  is  a  universal  trait  of  normal  human  nature,  and 
Margaret's  originality  lay  in  the  frank  admission  of 
it.  Acknowledging  her  debt  to  nature,  she  had  the 
good  sense  to  pay  as  she  could,  and,  to  use  her  own 
words,  "  not  calculate  too  closely  ".  Her  life  was  a 
vindication  of  her  belief,  as  an  intellectual  woman,  in 
the  reality  of  the  instinctive  life;  as  it  was  also  a  vin 
dication  of  her  belief,  as  an  instinctive  woman,  in  the 
reality  of  the  intellectual  life. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

LITERARY  WORKS  OF   MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI 

In  the  order  of  their  production 

Eckermann's  Conversations  with  Goethe.  Translation.  Speci 
mens  of  Foreign  Standard  Literature,  Vol.  IV.  Boston,  Mil 
liard,  Gray  and  Co.,  1839. 

Correspondence  of  Fr'dulein  Gunderode  and  Bettina  von  Arnim. 
Joint  translation  with  Minna  Wesselhoeft.  Boston,  Burnham, 
1861. 

The  Dial;  a  magazine  for  literature,  philosophy,  and  religion. 
Edited  by  Margaret  Fuller,  R.  W.  Emerson,  and  George  Rip- 
ley.  Boston,  1840-1844. 

Summer  on  the  Lakes,  in  1843.    Boston,  Little  Brown,  1844. 

Woman  in  the  Nineteenth  Century.  Introduction  by  Horace 
Greeley.  Boston,  Jewett,  1855. 

Literature  and  Art:  Essays.  Introduction  by  Horace  Greeley. 
New  York,  Fowler  and  \Vells,  1852. 

Life  Without  and  Life  Within:  Essays.  New  York,  Tribune 
Association,  1869. 

Love  Letters,  1845-1846.  Introduction  by  Julia  Ward  Howe. 
New  York,  Appleton,  1903. 

At  Home  and  Abroad,  or,  Things  and  Thoughts  in  America  and 
Europe.  New  York,  Tribune  Association,  1869. 

BIOGRAPHICAL  SOURCES. 

Caroline  W.  Ball.  Historical  Pictures:  Margaret  Fuller.  Boston, 
Lee  and  Shepard,  1860. 

R.  W.  Emerson,  W.  H.  Charming,  and  J.  F.  Clarke.  Memoirs 
of  Margaret  Fuller  Ossoli.  New  York,  Tribune  Association, 
1869. 

Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson.  Margaret  Fuller  Ossoli.  Bos 
ton,  Houghton  Mifflin,  1884. 

Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson.  Margaret  Fuller,  in  Eminent 
Women  of  the  Age.  Hartford,  Betts,  1869. 

Julia  Ward  Howe.  Margaret  Fuller  (Marquesa  Ossoli).  Bos 
ton,  Roberts,  1883. 

Andrew  Macphail.  Margaret  Fuller,  in  Essays  in  Puritanism. 
Boston,  Houghton  Mifflin,  1905. 

PSYCHOLOGICAL  SOURCES. 

S.  Ferenczi.  Contributions  to  Psychoanalysis.  Boston,  Badger, 
1916. 

217 


21 8  Bibliography 


Sigmund  Freud.    Delusion  and  Dream.    New  York,  Moffat  Yard, 

1917- 
The  Interpretation  of  Dreams.     New   York, 

Macmillan,  1912. 
Leonardo  da  Vinci.    New  York,  MofTat  Yard, 

1916. 
Horace  Westlake  Frink.    Morbid  Fears  and  Compulsions.    New 

York,  Moffat  Yard,  1918. 
Mary  Keyt  I  sham.     Real  Womanliness  the  Basis  of  a  Career. 

New  York  Times  Magazine.     November  28,  1915. 
Ernest  Jones.    Papers  on  Psychoanalysis.    London,  Bailliere  Tin- 

dall,  1913. 

C.  G.  Jung.  Collected  Papers  on  Analytical  Psychology.  Edited 
by  Dr.  Constance  Long.  London,  Bailliere  Tin- 
dall,  1916. 

Psychology   of   the    Unconscious.     Introduction   by 
Beatrice   M   Hinkle,  M.D,     New  York,   Moffat 
•  Yard,  1916. 

GENERAL  SOURCES 

John  Quincey  Adams.    Memoirs.    Philadelphia,  Lippincott,  1874- 

1877. 

Matilde  Blind.     George  Eliot.     Boston,  Roberts.  1883 
Frederick  Augustus  Braun.    Margaret  Fuller  and  Goethe.    New 

York,  Holt,  1910. 

Margaret  Fuller's  Translation  and 
Criticism     of     Goethe's     Faust. 
Journal    of    English    and    Ger 
manic  Philology,  April,  1914. 
Fredrika   Bremen     Homes   of   the   New   World.     New    York, 

Harper,  1854. 
Albert  Brisbane,     Social  Destiny  of  Man.     Philadelphia,  Stoll- 

meyer,  1840. 
Jane  Welsh  Carlyle.    Letters  and  Memorials.    New  York,  Scrib- 

ner's,  1883. 
Thomas  Carlyle  and  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.     Correspondence. 

Boston,  Osgood,  1883. 

Richard  V.    Carpenter.     Margaret    Fuller   in    Nothern    Illinois. 
Journal  of  the  Illinois  State  Historical  Society.    Springfield. 
January,   1910 
G.   K.   Chesterton.     Robert  Browning.     New  York,   Macmillan, 

ioo3. 
Lydia  Maria  Child.    Memoirs  of  Mme.  de  Stael  and  M'me.  Roland. 

New  York,  C.  S.  Francis,  1847. 
J.  W.  Cross.    George  Eliot's  Life  as  Related  in  her  Letters  and 

Journals.    New  York,  Harper,  1855. 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.     Historic  Notes  of  Life  and  Letters  in 

Massachusetts.      Atlantic    Monthly, 
October,  1883. 

Mary      Moody      Emerson.       Atlantic 
Monthly,  December,  1883. 


Bibliography  219 


Eliza  Ware  Farrar.  Recollections  of  Seventy  Years,  Boston, 
Osgood,  1866. 

Margaret  Fuller.  Letter  to  E.  A.  Duyckinck.  Manuscript ;  New 
York  Public  Library. 

Octavius  B.  Frothingham.  Transcendentalism  in  New  England. 
Boston,  American  Unitarian  Association,  1876. 

H.  C.  Goddard.  New  England  Transcendentalism,  in  Cambridge 
History  of  American  Literature.  New  York,  Putnam,  1917. 

William  Godwin.  Memoirs  of  Mary  W 'oilstone ' craft  Godwin, 
author  of  "  A  Vindication  of  the  Rights  of  Woman."  Phila 
delphia,  Carey,  1799. 

Horace  Greeley.  Recollections  of  a  Busy  Life.  New  York, 
Tribune  Association,  1869. 

Horace  Greeley  and  Robert  Dale  Owen.  Discussion  of  the  Law 
of  Divorce.  In  Recollections.  New  York,  Tribune  Associa 
tion,  1869. 

Horace  Greeley  and  H.  J.  Raymond.  'Association  Discussed,  or 
the  Socialism  of  the  Tribune  Examined.  New  York,  Harper, 

1847. 

Frank  Harris.  Carlyle,  in  Contemporary  Portaits.  New  York, 
Kennerley,  1915. 

Julian  Hawthorne.  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  and  His  Wife.  Bos 
ton,  Osgood,  1885. 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne.  'Blithedale  Romance.  Boston,  Osgood, 
1852. 

Morris  Hillquit.  History  of  'Socialism  in  the  United  States. 
New  York,  Funk  and  Wagnalls,  1903. 

Henry  James.  William  Wetmore  Story  and  His  Friends.  Bos 
ton,  Houghton  Mifflin,  1903. 

Bolton  King.    History  of  Italian  Unity.    London,  Nisbet,  1899. 
Massini.    New  York,  Dutton,  1902. 

Karl  Knortz.  Brook  Farm  und  Margaret  Fuller.  New  York, 
Bartsch,  1886. 

James  Russell  Lowell.  Fable  for  Critics.  New  York,  Putnam, 
1848. 

Harriet  Martineau.    "Autobiography.    Boston,  Osgood,  1877. 

Society  in  America.     New   York,   Harper, 
1837. 

Giuseppe  Mazzini.    George  Sand,  in   Critical  Essays.     London, 

Smith  Elder,  1891. 

Letters  to  the  Italian  Working  Class.    Lon 
don,  Smith  Elder,  1891. 

James  Parton.    Life  of  Horace  Greeley.    Boston,  Osgood,  1869. 

Frank  B.  Sanborn.  Recollections  of  Seventy  Years.  Boston, 
Badger,  1909. 

L.  C.  Scott.  Life  and  Letters  of  Christopher  Pearse  Cranch. 
Boston,  Houghton  Mifflin,  1917. 

Charles  Sotheran.  Horace  Greeley  and  other  Pioneers  of  Ameri 
can  Socialism.  New  York,  Humboldt  Publishing  Co.,  1892. 


22O  Bibliography 


Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton  and  Susan  B.  Anthony.  History  of 
Woman  Suffrage.  New  York,  Fowler  and  Wells,  and  Roches 
ter,  Susan  B.  Anthony.  1881-192. 

Frank  Preston  Stearns.  The  Life  and  Genius  of  Nathaniel  Haw 
thorne.  Philadelphia,  Lippincott,  1906. 

George  Robert  Stirling  Taylor.  Mary  W  oilstone  craft.  New 
York,  John  Lane,  1911. 

Lilian  Whiting.  The  Brownings,  Their  Life  and  Art.  Boston, 
Little  Brown,  1911. 


INDEX 


Adams,  John  Quincy,  8,  30,  85 
Alcott,  Amos  Bronson,  46,  61 
Anthony,  Susan  B.,  81,  109 
Atkinson,  H.  A.,  134,  135 

/ 

Beethoven,  49,  100,  179 
Belgiojoso,  Princess,  182,  183 
Beranger,   141,  142 
Blithedale  Romance,  90 
Boston,  77 

Bremer,  Fredrika,  125,  173,  174 
Brentano,  Bettina,  37 
Brisbane,   Albert,    106 
Bronte,  Charlotte,  134 
Brook  Farm,  88,  89,  90 
Browning,     Elizabeth    Barrett, 

48,  132,  136,  137,  197,  209 
Browning,  Robert,  136,  209 
Brutus,  40,   199 

Cambridge,  I,  28,  29 

Cambridge  History  of  Ameri 
can  Literature,  in 

Carlyle,  Jane,  80,  133,  137-139, 
176,  192 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  n,  34,  99i 
104,  i? 3,  137-139,  208,  209 

Catholicism,   158,  159 

Channing,  William  Henry,  34, 
42,  61,  106,  184 

Clarke,  James  Freeman,  34 

Concord,  61,  93,  101 

Conversations,  61-67 

Cooper,  Fenimore,  119 

Dante,  178,  199 

Declaration  of  Sentiments,  80 
de  Stael,  Mme.,  33 
Dial,  The,  95-97,  99 
Divorce,  Greeley  on,  108,  109 
Duyckinck,  E.  A.,  136,  138 


Eckermann's  Conversations,  47 


Eliot,  George,  140,  141 
Emerson,    Mary    Moody,    101, 

102 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  21,  23, 

38,  61,  64,  66,  85,  95-104,  161, 

175 
Essays  on  Puritanism,  23 

Fable  for  Critics,  121 

Farrar,  Mrs.  Eliza,  35,  44 

Ferenczi,  S.,  65 

Florence,   195 

Fourier,    68,    69,    89,    90,    127, 

199 

Francis,  Lydia  Maria,  33,  34 
Freud,   Sigmund,  23,   149 
Freudian   psychology,   37,    133, 

134,  137,  210 

Fuller,  Abraham,  5,  6,  44 
Fuller,  Eugene,  42,  80,  152,  161 
Fuller,  Margaret,  ambition,  31; 

birth,    i ;    conversations,    61- 

67;  death,  206,  208;  demons, 

42,  53;    dreams,   16-19;   edi 
torship,  95-99;  education,  12- 
14;   fantasies,  20,   21    51-56; 
feminism,  42,  57,  70-83 ;  Gro- 
ton  farm,  40;  hysteria,  19,  22- 

26,  210,    21 1 ;    love    affairs, 

27,  28;    marriage,    159-162; 
motherhood,    168,    169;    pre 
cocity,  13,  14;  republicanism, 
12,   179,    180,    187,    189,    109, 
200,  211,  212;  school  life,  28- 
30;  teaching,  47;  travels,  102, 
104,  125-143 

Fuller,  Mrs.  Margaret,  9,  10 
Fuller,   Timothy,   1-3,    5-9,   16, 

43,  211 

Garibaldi,  190 

Garibaldi's     Legionaries,     198, 
199 


221 


222 


Index 


Goethe,   47,   52,    100,   101,    139, 

140,  212,  213 

Gotendorf,   see  James  Nathan 
Greeley,    Horace,    57,   59,    103, 

105-111,   119,   121-124,  202 
Greeley,  Mrs.,  107-109 
Giinderode,  Canoness,  37 

Harbinger,  The,  96 
Hawthorne,    Nathaniel,    90-95, 

200,  20 1 
Hedge,    Frederick    Henry,    13, 

34,  40,  98 
Higginson,      Thomas      Went- 

worth,  5,  6,  13,  23,  25,  31,  35, 

59,  90,  172 
Howe,  Julia  Ward,  13,  23 

James,  Henry,  92,  154,  182 
Jefferson,   Thomas,   7,   40,   200 

La  Mennais,  141 

Lewes,  George  Henry,  139-141 

Liberalism,  87,  93 

London  Reform  Club,  127, 
128 

Longfellow,  Henry  Wads- 
worth,  47,  120,  121 

Love  Letters  of  Margaret 
Fuller,  in 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  121,  122 

Marlanna,  28-30 

Marriage,  Greeley  on,  108,  109, 

202,  203 
Martineau,  Harriet,  44,  64,  129- 

136 
Mazzini,  135,  137,  162,  175-182, 

191,  192,  199,  200 
McPhail,  Andrew,  23,  172 
Memoirs   of   Margaret   Fuller 

Ossoli,  82,  117 
Mesmerism,    131-135 
Modena,  Giulia,  176,  192 
Mott,  Lucretia,  65 

Nathan,  James,   113,   114,  115- 

117 

New  York,  104 
North    American    Phalanstery, 

127 


Ossoli,    Angelo    Eugene,    168, 

172,  I93;i95,  204,  205 
Ossoli,   Giovanni   Angelo,   151- 

154,    159-162,    167,    168,    193- 

197,  207,  208 
Ossoli,    Margaret    Fuller,    see 

Margaret  Fuller 

Paine-Godwin  circle,  68 
Papers  on  Literature  and  Art, 

117 

Parker,  Theodore,  99 
Peabody,  Elizabeth,  63 
Prostitution,  77-79 
Puritanism,  5,  87,  93 

Raymond,  H.  J.,  122-124 
Rieti,  165-167 
Ripley,  George,  88,  96 
Ripley,  Mrs.,  89 
Romanticism,  35,  36 
Rome,  148,  149,  179 
Rousseau,  68,   199 

Salem,  4,  93 

Sand,  George,  58,  84,  85,   143- 

147,  176 
Seneca    Falls    Convention,    63, 

& 

Socialism,  87,  93,  122-124 
Society  in  America,   129-131 
Spring,  Marcus,  106,  125-128 
worth,   5,  6,   12,   23,   25,   31, 

Spring,  Rebecca,  82,   125,  126, 

174,  185 

Stanton,  Elizabeth  Cady,  65 
Story,   W.   W.,   122,    155,   170, 

171 
Story,  Mrs.  W.  W.,  151,  I59» 

170-172,  202 
Sturgis,  Caroline,  156 
Summer  on  the  Lakes,  102 
Sumner,  Horace,  201 

Taylor,  Bayard,  205 
Times,  New  York,  124 
Tribune,    New    York,    105-107, 

117-124 
Transcendentalism,    85-87,    96, 

97 


Index 


223 


Transcendentalists, 
84-90 


The,     67, 


Vindication   of    the   Rights  of 
Woman,  68 

Walpole,  Horace,  82 
Wollstonecraft,    Mary,    10,   27, 
58,  116,  162,  194 


Woman  in  the  Nineteenth  Cen 
tury,  2,  63,  67,  94 
Women,  occupations  of,  69,  70 
Women,  political  rights  of,  80 
Women,  status  of,  59-61 
Wordsworth,  126 

Xantippe,  107 


Tixrr 


RETURN     CIRCULATION  DEPARTMENT 

TO— ^      202  Main  Library 


LOAN  PERIOD  1 
HOME  USE 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS 

1 -month  loans  may  be  renewed  by  calling  642-3405 

1-year  loans  may  be  recharged  by  bringing  the  books  to  the  Circulation  Desk 

Renewals  and  recharges  may  be  made  4  days  prior  to  due  date 


DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 

DFQ    71983 

^- 

Bc.cm.iaa*« 

_    •iflOC 

MAY  1  6  «85 

HEC  CIR  MAY     Z  1985 

.«io  r--- 

t             *»/*  ncr  \  0  * 

i 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  BERKELEY 
FORM  NO.  DD6,  60m,  1/83          BERKELEY  CA  94720 


I 


GENERAL  LIBRARY  -  U.C.  BERKELEY 


BOOOSDS^flb 


I 


